The Tips Of Her Wings
by Quietly Making Noise
Summary: Nothing spoils a vacation quite like a clumsy assassination attempt... Shepard vows to make it up to Thane, but only after she's hunted these idiots to the source. Post-ME2 story, with fluff and guns. Shrios. [Ch. 20: Whoops, there it goes into M rating..!]
1. Prologue: Tears

**AN**: _Some quick disclaimers before we start... I've never played ME3, nor any of the DLC, but intend to, and am compensating with soundboards. This is my Shepard (Earthborn Survivor Vanguard Paragon). Bonus material at the end of the story will include a YouTube playlist for appropriate music per chapter. Bioware owns allllll._

_Warnings: includes mild- to mid- graphic descriptions of violence and some swearing. And drug use. By drug I mean drell skin._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

The drell's skin was composed of fine, smooth scales. As she slid her hand over his she felt the dense muscle shift as his fist tightened with the effort of controlling himself. The pools of his eyes were not so contained.

'… I am afraid and it shames me-'

'Thane...'

He looked up, shoulders heavy with the weight of staring too many truths in the face. She wondered how long he had sat completely still in Life Support, before coming to her. She wondered how many memories of Irikah he had relived. She wondered if he had relived any recent events involving her. She certainly had: she had read the beginning of the same file three times before he'd come in. _Fierce in wrath. A tenacious protector._

For once, her ability to talk her way out of any situation would not work here. The assassin knew every detail of the impossible situation they had slipped into: there was no other side of it she could show to him. There was only one comfort to give.

On the old Normandy, in her previous life, Liara T'Soni had once explained to her that humans were becoming notorious amongst the galactic community for their impulsiveness: a threat to stability, or a praise-worthy trait of survival. Time to live up to her species.

She lifted her hand to him and this time he did not flinch away. Her palm, toughened by workouts and triggers, brushed his cheek and her fingertips touched the red ruff on his neck. Her skin looked even darker compared to his sleek greenness. God but he was warm. She'd already made the tactical decision to invite him to stay a while, in view of his distress, but now it was a decision she made with the whole of her body.

'Be alive with me, tonight.'

His mouth opened, presumably to protest, and she kissed him. She vaguely remembered Mile-A-Minute Mordin jabbering something about skin-to-skin contact and it being a bad idea but that couldn't possibly be right. _Impulse arrested spills over and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion... _Where was that from?

She broke the kiss and examined him, and was surprised by the distance in his eyes. He'd put his hands on her shoulders and his thumbs rested on her collar. This close to him she could feel him breathing, feel the muscles tug and pull air into his ruined lungs. 'I'm gonna have to go through your body to get to your soul,' she murmured. 'These things need fixing from the inside out.'

Suddenly the distance in his eyes shattered; he blinked horizontally, releasing two more tears. She pushed them away with her thumbs, astonished still by the warm smoothness of the scales.

'Siha... You are so warm...'


	2. Dust

Shepard stepped down out of the shuttle and wished, not for the first time, that she could have kept the Mako. The desert sand swept away from the landing pad in huge, inviting peaks of red-gold, just waiting to be conquered. The heat, kept at bay by the climate control of her armour, began to creep into her awareness. Her HUD registered an exterior temperature of 53 degrees C, and the air vibrated with it. She crouched down and let a handful of fine sand run through her glove.

Behind her, beyond the cracked but serviceable landing pad, the sand-scraped ruins of a city slept in the heat. Erosion had eased the sharp edges of decay into smooth contours, and the shadows and curves struck her with an impression of beauty. The ruins stretched out down a deep valley of rock and sand, held at bay by thick bracing walls at the edges. In the distance, the dark smudges of cliffs blurred with the heat haze.

Shepard trotted down some steps to a viewpoint set into the bedrock. The railing had long since fallen to the shifting sand, but the platform felt solid enough. She raised her visor and coughed at the thickness of the air. It was like being in a sauna room. A gust of hot wind caused handfuls of sand to whip up and rattle away down the dune; abruptly the air current changed and blew some of it back into her face. Shepard gagged and blinked and spat out the desert.

'It would be best if you were to isolate yourself from this environment, siha.'

She closed her visor up as the drell spoke, and straightened. She still found it irritating to have to communicate through comms when standing right next to someone. Particularly this someone. 'Is the wind always out to get you?'

'Not always. As well as dust, it brings smells, of water, food, company. This time...' He inhaled. '… Nothing but warmth and silence.'

Thane had his eyes closed, but only horizontally: the transparent film kept out the worst of the sand until the wind subsided. He blinked both ways and came and stood very close to her, staring out over the city.

'I can't help but think this might have been us,' mused Shepard. '11 billion people, heavily industrialised, dwindling natural resources... Do you ever think about them?'

'Of course. It is tradition for drell on Khaje to return to the homeworld on pilgrimage, at least once in their lifetime. To pray for those who did not survive, and remember.'

'I thought you said most people didn't believe in the old gods any more.'

'They don't. But they return to pray all the same. Sometimes I think the gods are aspects of this world that we observed during our genesis here.' He paused. '_The dust is everywhere, in all the pieces of my clothes. Dry and warm and breathable. The pilgrimage leader sets the orb on the top of the stand and the sun burns through it into our eyes. Everyone can feel the heat. The cynical pilgrim next to me falls to her knees in the dust.'_

Shepard took his hand. 'Sounds powerful.'

Thane blew out a breath in a quiet hissing noise and gripped her hand. 'Yes.'

She waited a moment while he anchored himself in the present again, then tugged him. 'Come on. Let's explore.'

'The entire planet was picked clean by pockets of survivors, siha. There will be little to scavenge.'

'You know me too well. But I still want to look around the place. Come on.'

Two lifetimes worth of training dictated she jog all the way down the steps leading into the city, and automatically pick out spots of cover. Behind her she knew the assassin, just as automatically, was scouting vantage points. The first few blocks were, as he had said, picked clean. Empty warehouses yawned at the golden heat of the street. After a crossroads she dived down the shade of an alley, and went boldly through a doorway covered by a scrap of greasy cloth.

With the abrupt change in light levels, the thing on the floor in the little room caught her by surprise, and she was aglow with biotic energy before she had a chance to examine it properly. 'What's that?'

The drell slipped in behind her, and collapsed his rifle. 'A relic.'

Shepard relaxed her concentration as he knelt and collected the thing up into his arms. The figurine was smoothed of detail and battered by the environment, but the polished metal still glowed. It was a large-eyed female figure with many arms and a thin, coiling tail. Two hands held a child, one a bow, one a knife, and another set held two flowers up high. Six glorious dragonfly-like wings splayed out from the figure's spine.

'_Illium sunrise beams through the window behind. Drop. Take out the guards, flip the asari around, one quick shot to the stomach. Shock and pain. Twitching and bleeding. I close the asari's eyes and let her down gently onto the console to die. Fold her arms. Clasp hands to pray. Close my eyes fully but the black stare of the dark-skinned human female follows me into the prayer and for the first time in ten years I cannot concentrate.'_

Shepard shivered despite the heat. But touched as she was, she wasn't going to encourage Thane to dwell any more than he already did. 'Did my skin make that much of an impression?'

He spoke without looking round. 'Human races fascinate many species. Such diversity from a single planet is quite astonishing.'

'Yeah. Looks like there might have been deserts somewhere in my history too.'

He stood up and replaced the figurine on the little stone ledge in the wall from which it had fallen. He joined his hands. Shepard wondered briefly whether to leave him to it or to step closer.

She joined him and waited, clasping her hands in front of her. The aural receptors in her helmet picked up the sound of his breathing, silent in, mild hiss out... In, out, in, out, then a tight little rattling sound that sent adrenaline and fear shooting through her Cerberus-enhanced system. She wanted to punch something. Glancing back at the figurine, holding life and death in its many hands, Shepard felt herself reaching out with her mind instead.

'Thank you for staying,' he said presently, lowering his hands.

'You're right. There is something about this place that makes you think. Kind of... stretch.'

'I am glad you feel it too, siha.'

'Do all your angels have insect wings?'

'Yes.'

They went out into the alley again and walked its length. Another street brought them to a wide open space, where the sand had rubbed away the mosaic pattern on the floor and the desert had long since claimed the booths. 'The market square,' supplied Thane, stepping out into the open space and turning around to take it in. 'I feel a little strange, siha. This is a place that should be crowded with memories, but this is the first time I have been here. I feel connected but very distant at the same time.'

'I suppose that's the feeling of pilgrimage.'

'That is a good way of thinking of it.'

The wind roared again, tumbling streams of sand and grit down the street they had just come from and sending it cascading across the empty square. 'Good thing the drell don't have ancestral memories as good as their own,' commented Shepard, forcing her way through the blast of wind. 'You'd have drowned by now. When did you last come back to Rakh—'

She was only able to consciously sort through the events that followed thirty seconds later, sheltering behind a pillar. Something metallic had glinted at the top of a ruin to their right; firing up her implants she'd Charged Thane to the ground, sending them both skidding a good few metres, just as the dust where he had stood exploded into pieces of grit and shattered stone. Gripping one another's arm, they stormed across the gaping open space in a hail of bullets and dived for cover. Shepard booted up her radar while she waited for her shields to recover. 'Three on our left, one opposite. Low heat emissions.'

'Geth?'

'More likely pirates or mercs with radiation shielding. Is this building solid?'

He poked his head out to check. Shepard powered off a round of SMG pellets straight across, but the distance was too great and the target only took one or two hits to its armour. Thane ducked again and nodded. 'Get up high and pick them off. I'll distract them from down here. Good hunting.'

He nodded, sent off a quick prayer, then wheeled and hauled himself up the open staircase. Shepard loosed another clip across while he climbed then ducked back behind the pillar. The target took more hits this time and dropped. She reloaded just in time to see movement at the end of the row of pillars. She blew out a breath to focus herself, launched off the pillar, and Charged again. Her target, a human dressed in Blue Suns uniform, dropped like a sack of irridium and was quickly put out of his misery with a spray of bullets. Shepard kicked him over with her boot and crouched again. She flicked through open comm channels but the mercs were being unusually quiet. The first twinges of a headache began to gnaw at her consciousness.

The crack of a sniper rifle boomed around the square, and gunfire crackled above her. Another dot disappeared from her scanner. Two left. She needed a better position. There was a ruined booth out in the open that she judged would shelter her for a little while. She switched to her heavy pistol and went for it.

Such a blatant run did, as she'd hoped, draw their attention, and she heard the sickening sound of her shield shattering as she vaulted the ruined booth and ducked. Another boom echoed overhead, and a second red dot vanished from her radar. Return fire sparked in the heat, and she heard Thane grunt over the comm.

Rage unfolded its wings within her. Smoothly she holstered her pistol and unfolded the missile launcher. She forced herself to wait another second to throw up a Barrier, then stood up. Bullet poured into her defences as she calmly took aim, adjusted for wind and muscle shift, and launched a seeker. She looked up from the scope and watched through the bullets as the missile screamed across the marketplace and exploded into the rooftop, sending the hapless merc spread-eagled and very dead over the side. His corpse dropped into the dust with a revolting crunch.

Shepard breathed again and crouched, checking the radar. 'Thane? Clear from here. Anything up there?'

'Clear.'

'Stay there, I'll come to you. I swear Thane, one day, one day, I'll be able to take a vacation without someone trying to kill me.'

'Don't flatter yourself, siha. It was me they were aiming at.'


	3. Ghosts

Shepard emerged at the top of the stairs and sprinted across the roof. Up here the sun was blinding, and her suit automatically compensated by shading her visor. A low wall ran all the way around the rooftop, and she crouched next to Thane. The assassin looked up from his prayer. 'We were foolish to be caught in the open.'

'Agreed. Next time we go on vacation we'll go expecting to be shot.'

'You are the one who insisted we go armed. There are clips on the other roof. Wait,' he added as Shepard moved to stand. He raised the rifle and scanned the square of buildings through the scope. 'There's a plank bridge to our left. Wait.' He tensed, perfectly still. His lips moved. The crack of the gun punched again through the silence, and through the head of a mercenary sniper in the ruins to their right. The echoes faded; the body flopped awkwardly out of the window and began to bleed down the wall. Thane winced as he ejected the clip.

'Shot,' praised Shepard. 'He must have come in after we checked the scanners. This heat isn't helping the sensors.'

'Check the other roof for clips and salvage, siha. I need to clean up that mess.'

Shepard stood warily. That sort of slip could easily have been the death of them. The assassin collapsed the rifle and stowed it and moved off to the staircase with an SMG in his hand. Apart from his receding footsteps, the ruined city slept once more under its last dust, still and heavy like a corpse. She jogged over to the plank and wobbled across, jumping down with a scrunching sound as her boots hit the grit. Parts of this building had already fallen in: gaping holes in the roof material revealed the innards of the place. Impossible to guess the function with this much decay and erosion. She'd have to be careful where she stood. The sun flared in her visor.

They had been stupid, yes, standing around in the open on a strange planet. Her feelings had got in the way of reflexive and basic safety. She was a dangerous person to know these days. Well, the important thing was that they had survived. Scanning the two corpses left up here revealed little usable tech. Looked like another human and a turian, these two shot cleanly through the helmets. Little suffering. The merc she had hit with the missile had had a much rockier ride into death than these two. A trickle of guilt at the overkill threatened to enter her soul, and she stemmed it quickly. When their bodies were recovered they would send a warning to others, of what happens when you attempt to kill Commander Shepard. Or more accurately, what happens when you try to kill Commander Shepard's lover. Flies were swarming over the corpses. Shepard swatted them away and retrieved two thermal clips, and a datapad from the turian's utility belt.

Hacking always tried her patience. She had just figured out the correct codes when Thane reappeared, but went past her. She concentrated on the code as, in the corner of her vision, he calmly rearranged the bodies, arms crossed and helmets straightened. He remained still in prayer as she pawed through the files on the datapad.

'These guys sent off a transmission about ten minutes ago.'

'Presumably to their employer.'

'I'll wing it over to EDI. She should be able to figure out where it came from.' She uploaded the data to her faithful omni-tool and sent the message. In doing so she looked up and faced out over the square from the south side. The blood-stained empty window lay opposite. '… Call me callous, but does that bloodstain look like a sunfish to you?'

Thane blinked at it.

'Never mind. But if those mercs ratted us out, this vacation just got a lot more complicated.'

'Something is not right,' murmured the drell, kneeling down and touching the sightless visor of the human corpse. 'These mercenaries were young and inexperienced; easily distracted. Sending them after me was suicide. They are but pawns, in a greater game.'

'This data should solve the problem. All we have to do is pay the recipient a visit and tell them to stop trying to kill us.'

'Somehow I doubt it will be that simple.'

Shepard swatted again at the flies and dropped the datapad in the dust. 'Let's get down from here.'

The creamy voice of the ship's AI beamed through their comms on the way down the crumbling staircase. 'Shepard, the destination coordinates are encrypted and it will take me some time to decipher them. In addition, I have located two abandoned desert skiffs just outside the settlement. Transmitting coordinates.'

'Mind if we check those out before we go?' asked Shepard.

'Not at all.'

They exited the square through the building this time, and started down the street. Following EDI's directions led them south, encouraged along by violent blasts of wind that sent dust and grit streaming past them. The air thickened, reddish and powdery. Shepard's suit had been switched to life support mode for a good five minutes before she realised and isolated the problem. 'Hold up a sec. My breathing filter's blocked. Needs changing.'

'We should shelter you from the wind. Here.' Thane kicked out a door, checked the room inside, and motioned her in. This room had once been a dwelling, long since looted and scrubbed clean by the sands.

Shepard unlocked the seals and pulled off her helmet, exclaiming aloud in protest at the atmosphere. A trickle of dust fell from her collar. Inside they were out of the wind, but the heat was intense and heavy and stifling. Her body, faced with cooled limbs and overheating head, began to panic, and her heart rate jumped up. She coughed, already feeling the dust in her lungs. Her breathing grated in her ears. _Come on, focus._ Quickly, she flipped the catches and drew out the filter in the mouthpiece; Thane caught the helmet as it fell from her hands. Shepard tossed the filter aside and fumbled in her utility belt for a spare. Every in-breath was sharp and strained, horribly loud in the quiet heat. Her vision was beginning to prickle at the edges. Finally she found the piece of treated foam and jammed it into place, Thane holding the helmet steady. She crammed it back onto her head, her heart blasting starved blood round and round her body. The seal fizzed but held, and a second later cool, clear air flooded her face. She coughed out the dust, and while she recovered she became aware that Thane had fastened the manual clips on her helmet and had his hand on her shoulder.

'Your species adapted to _this_?' she panted. 'No wonder the hanar homeworld causes problems. How are you doing, by the way?'

'The condition is irreversible, but I feel better for having once more breathed the desert. You I think feel worse.'

'Yeah. My life support had switched itself on when my filter died. Planets like this are why Cerberus should have let me keep the Mako.'

'But you still want to find the skiffs?'

'We find those, we'll have more information about who's hunting us. Or parts to sell. Both, ideally. We might even get hold of some palladium so Mordin can upgr-'

She cut herself off as a horribly clear image of the desolate tech lab flashed into her mind. Thane's hand on her shoulder tightened; his grip still surprised her with its strength. 'That was not your fault, siha.'

'Come on.'

They moved through the streets in silence, alert for other hostiles that might slip past their sensors. The street broadened and ran directly out of the city, and apart from the blasting wind nothing else moved. Shepard's unease grew. She knew she'd feel better when they had enough details for her to compile it into an assignment for herself.

The cover ran out as they neared the edge of the city, where the houses and buildings dribbled out into the sand and rock with no clear pattern or order.

'_Looking out over the city as the shuttle pulls away. The history of my species fades into the dust. Scattered ruins trickle out into rock and aridity and forgetting. Too soon the dark ocean of space returns and the planet shrinks into the deep._'

Shepard stopped while he recovered himself. The drell had been reliving memories much more frequently since the suicide mission. She of all people on board knew most accurately why, but the knowledge did not make it any easier to witness.

'Siha...'

'I'm here.'

'Let us find the skiffs and go. This ruin is... conflicting.'

'Not a problem. Let's move out.'

The skiffs were already coated in grit by the time they found them. The logs confirmed they'd been hired by one Lieutenant Ation from a survivor settlement a few clicks away, called Irtasaha. Shepard poked through the transports for further clues with little success. 'Do you think we killed this guy back there, or will he be waiting for us up ahead?'

'No lieutenant, not even a mercenary, would put three of five men on the same side of a quadrangle, as well-placed as they were. He will be waiting for us. I think he will expect us to track him down.'

'They messed with my master assassin, of course we're going to hunt him down. But we should head back to the ship and take a breather first. I want to follow this through with a strike team just to be sure. And I need a shower.'

'Of course.'

'Let me just transmit this... EDI, more data coming your way.'

'Standing by, Shepard... Upload complete.'

Shepard deactivated her omni-tool and put her foot up on the side of one skiff. A sure cure, albeit temporary, for guilt and grief was complete and utterly insane distraction. 'Can you drive one of these?'

Thane ran a hand over the controls thoughtfully. 'I believe so. In theory it's just another mass-effect drive based vehicle. Wait, what are you...?'

'I want to find out if you can pilot this thing.'

'The best place to discover that would be from a safe distance, not from the front of the vehicle.'

'Have you ever known me take a back seat? Get in, fire her up, and take us back to the shuttle. Don't make me make that an order,' she added, as Thane hesitated.

He climbed in beside her, shaking his head in disbelief. 'I hope you have a biotic shield up.'

'What's life without a little danger? I trust you. Take us out!'


	4. Remembrance

_What won't I do to find you  
I'd cloak my face and hide  
I'd veil myself in black and steel  
And battle at your side_

_(Audra Mae, "Bandida")_

Back on board the Normandy, Shepard's headache had come out with force, pounding on her skull with the effort of L-5 biotics and the harsh atmosphere of Rakhana. She'd got herself through the debriefing and had outlined what had happened, then announced she needed to rest up before following through. Tali'Zorah had suggested out loud what most of the crew were thinking and asked if Shepard didn't want to see Dr Chakwas.

'I'll be fine, Tali, it's just a headache and a lungful of dust. I could use a shower though. Dismissed. I'll call on you all later.'

Thane left stoically with the rest, though Garrus hesitated and glanced back at her at the door. Shepard paused a while to wait for the path to the elevator to clear, then headed up to the loft.

The sterile water from the shower steamed around her reconstituted body, slipping down new scars and the enhanced muscle tissue. The regulation white plating in the bathroom made her feel like a living shadow, which in a sense she was. Spectre was a word for ghost, after all. Except this shadow wasn't afraid to punch people or throw them across rooms or send a biotic shockwave through an explosive container. She scrubbed the desert off herself and watched the sand bead around the plughole. Even insulated in her suit she'd still somehow accumulated the stuff. The steam felt good to breathe, and her headache began to ease up.

She emerged from the bathroom and pulled on a jumpsuit. Her armour lay in pieces on the floor where she had discarded it without thinking. She gathered the sections and settled down with her repair kit to cleaning the grit out of it. Cross-legged on the floor, with low, heartbeat-like music in the background, she slipped into a gloriously empty trance. For a few blissful moments, her mind was totally occupied with the mechanical problems of removing each grain of sand.

It couldn't last, of course. Grains of sand inevitably led her mind to time, and the handful of desert she had let run through her glove on Rakhana. Civilisations that had escaped industrialisation reportedly still used such primitive devices to keep track of time. Early humans had used it too.

She could feel a brooding mood at the back of her mind, looming over her spirit like grey clouds over a summer's day. The question now was which one of them would break first, and seek the other out. Before the rains came.

Shepard had made a bargain with herself to at least finish this task and then see how she felt, and it was with intense relief that she registered the door open to the one other handprint that was set to activate it. He came in and waited for the door to shut, then picked his way over the floor and sat on the bed. They sat in silence while she finished, and stowed the pieces in the locker. Then she came and sat next to him.

They twisted into one another and fell backwards, he below wrapping his arms around her, she above pressing her lips into his left frill. For a few more precious moments their contact kept the universe at bay. Shepard reached out and hit the dimmer, and the music stopped and the lights went out. Only the fish tank glowed, oozing blue light into the cabin. The drell's eyes absorbed the dim light; this close she could make out his irises, and beyond that the deep dark pupil, and therein the minute reflection of herself, just as deep and dark.

'So,' she breathed. 'Turns out you _can_ pilot a skiff.'

He'd locked her in his arms, strength carefully moderated not to crush her, but to hold her close to him. Warmth seeped through her clothing. Any closer and she would pass right through him. There was an infuriating few layers of fabric in the way first. She wriggled in his arms until he loosened his grip, and began to undo his jacket. His hands went up and his fingers went into her short hair as she worked.

'How is your headache?'

'Better. I'm thinking I should do something different with my hair. Shave it. Trim it. Maybe dreadlock it.'

They sat up and he pulled himself out of his sleeves. His torso drew her hands like magnets. Every time this happened she couldn't stop herself from touching the sleek greenish scales, the dense muscle, the little ridges of old wounds. He lay back, nose flaring, and pulled gently at her zip. She released herself from the top of the jumpsuit and folded down onto him, chest to chest, lung to lung. His arms enveloped her again and he buried his face in her hair.

'My siha. What is it? Let me share the weight of your soul and make you Whole once more.'

'Mordin sang for me once,' she blurted quietly, pressed against him. He felt him snort with laughter. 'Do you know Gilbert and Sullivan? They'd changed some of the words. Fast songs obviously. He had a great voice. I... never expected that. I wanted to make him learn Tom Lehrer's Element Song. I can't help wondering what else I never knew. How many stories he had to tell. What brilliance he may have come up with next. Poor Grunt never made many stories of his own. And Legion... Did I destroy our only chance of negotiation with the Geth?'

'You forget that Legion was one body with many souls. All Geth know what you did for them. He gave his... life... willingly for the mission.'

'But Mordin... God. Mordin.'

'We all knew the mission would be a dance with Kalihira. No one blames you. Except you.'

' "Flammable! Or inflammable. Forget which. Doesn't matter." '

'_Tuchanka's ruins cage us and the bridge funnels us into their sights. Amonkira reveals all to his pilgrim: the krogan in my sight drops dead with a bullet through his skull. Reload, relocate, resume. Mordin vaults a broken pillar with surprising agility and scuttles forwards, incinerating the armour of a charging krogan and shooting it in the head as it flails. A vorcha pyro rounds the corner but Shepard is there, blasting it over the side with a shockwave; it flips over and over trailing flames as it falls. Human and salarian high-five in the carnage.'_

'I'd forgotten that. Thank you.'

'Our judgement is never complete. We can only make the best decisions with the information we have at the time. And sometimes, we have little to no control at all. You must not blame yourself for the paths of bullets you did not fire.'

He gripped her tight, in the present, in the warmth and the darkness, and again praised Arashu. The memory escaped him before he could stop himself. _'Impossibly the figurine resembles her. I tidy the shrine and pay my respects, and she is there beside me in silence, I feel her reaching out, I can almost feel the tips of her wings.'_

She pressed back harder, gripping him almost as tightly as he held her.

Presently sleep took them into its warm darkness, and something in their embrace kept the nightmares at bay.


	5. Pressure

She awoke alone with a start some hours later. In the glow from the fishtank she could make out his discarded jacket still on the bedcovers. His side of the bed was still warm. She sat up, squinting, and made out that the bathroom door was closed. This would be a good opportunity to top up the layer of ointment that eased the irritation skin-to-skin contact usually caused. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and found the little tube on the nightstand.

She was twisting awkwardly to get to the areas on her back when the coughing began. The tube dropped from her fingers; she pushed off the bed and crossed the room in two strides. From the first short, barking sounds, the coughing had increased in thickness and ferocity. She smeared the remains of the cream on her stomach and hurried to palm the door. It slid coolly open to reveal the drell hunched over the sink with one hand on the mirror and the other bracing his chest. Shepard became aware of every centimetre of her exposed skin as the blood drained from it, and a chill settled on her like snow. Between coughing his breathing was tight and strained. She stepped in behind him and put her hand on his back.

Finally he retched and spat and quickly ran the water to clear the red from the basin. He braced himself with both arms on the sink and hung his head. 'Uggh.'

Shepard discovered words had failed her. She knew the illness was in his lungs but she'd never witnessed the effects first-hand. From his reluctance to meet her eyes in the mirror, it seemed he'd never intended her to. Her heart was pounding with fear-fuelled adrenaline. Soundlessly she moved forwards and put her arms around him from behind, pressing herself close, hoping to force out the despair with warmth. She could feel the thundering of his own heart. In the mirror, her dark arms painted two strong, protecting lines across his bare chest.

'I never wished you to see me like this,' he said hoarsely.

'I'm not gonna let you suffer alone, Thane,' she murmured. 'Not any more.'

'The memories will haunt you.'

'True. But you'll remember I was there.' She squeezed him, and pressed her lips to the back of his neck. 'You'll remember this...' She adjusted her grip and turned her arms, holding his shoulders from the front and craning her head to kiss the velvety fringe of red skin on his cheek.

'… and this...' She turned him in her arms, and he followed her lead without protest. She brought her hands up and passed her thumbs over his cheeks, splaying her fingers over the fringes and holding his gaze steady.

'… and this...' And she kissed him.


	6. Division

_I spend the rest of the night cycle curled against her. Her black skin glows in the light; draws me like a magnet. I could never lose her to the darkness. I wake once and watch her sleep, soundless and still, but as soon as I shift too far she half-wakes and pulls me in again. Lightly, mindful of the irritation my touch causes, I let my fingers trail over her round face, her flat nose and full lips, and the dark oceans of her eyes now covered by fringed eyelids. Sleep is the one thing all species in the galaxy have in common._

_She calls us all to the briefing room and reminds everyone about the troubles we'd encountered on Rakhana, and describes the assignment she has worked out. Tali volunteers to come with us once more to the surface. We split to prepare; I return to Life Support, to give myself a shot of antibiotics, to pray and meditate, and to imagine her piecing together her battered black armour. I have not found much attention to pay to my gods recently, and it bothers me._

_The shuttle ride down is uneventful. The quarian stares at the sand as we power through the glorious heat and land on another pad, just outside the settlement of Irtasaha, a desert rose of circling buildings and thick rock. We disembark into the dust and follow the commander down the ramp and across the primitive port. The sun is setting, taking the temperature with it. I breathe the desert once more and feel the tightness in me loosen a little._

_Drell emerge from buildings as we pass and stare at us. I glance back to see some trailing us a little way in curiosity. Some twitch as memories of other off-worlders invade them for a moment. Only one is consumed by her memory to the point of reciting it aloud. Something about black and steel and battles. Do I really have so little self-control?_

_The dust we are kicking up begins to hang in the air; Tali'Zorah swats her hand in front of her visor to no avail. 'Where is this skiff place, Shepard? If we don't find it soon we'll be walking blind.'_

_'It's over here.'_

_We follow her through a square, she taking care to stick to the edges. I notice Tali has a deactivated drone in her hand. I've already checked the vantage points I can see, and note that if we are to be attacked, it will be through an access passage on the opposite side of the square. The wind picks up and pulls sheets of sand into the air._

_We pass through a modern door into a maintained building, the skiff hire place. The commander begins negotiating with the drell behind the booth, who keeps glancing at me for support. I clasp my hands behind my back and watch in silence. Presently, and with little stress on either side, she has the information we need: Lieutenant Ation sent five of his men ahead in the skiffs and stayed in town with nine more. Tali speaks privately over the comm. 'That's three each and a contest for the tenth...' I glance at her, but her expressions are unreadable._

_As we're leaving, the drell protests at the loss of the skiffs, stating quite rightly that Shepard could have returned them after she'd killed those responsible for them. She hesitates. She once told me that all possibilities occur to her in these situations, for good or ill. Then wordlessly, she turns back to the booth and flashes her omni-tool over the kiosk. The drell's eyes go even wider as he realises she's compensated him for the skiffs. The quarian and I share a moment of pride._

_We stop just outside the shop, sheltered from above by the veranda that runs the outside of the square. 'Shepard, it is likely we have already been spotted,' I warn. 'We should head down the passage to the east.'_

_'If we hold the end of that passage the mercs will have the sun full in the their faces,' she realises, drawing her pistol. 'Good call.'_

_'We need to find out who they are working for,' I remind her._

_'If we find their ship I can hack the logs and trace the transmissions to the source,' suggests Tali._

_'Alternatively we take them out, three each, but retain the tenth for questioning,' I counter. 'But we'd have to decide what to do with him once we have the information.'_

_She turns her visor transparent the better to talk to us. 'It wouldn't hurt to let him run back,' she decides. 'If we killed them all the effect would be the much the same on their employer. Stay sharp, the heat on this planet fools the sensors - with radiation shielding things tend to blend into the background. Assume they know this and we'll be fine. Thane, I don't suppose the wind gives you any clues?'_

_I orient myself with the flow of air, breathe out in prayer to Amonkira, and inhale the desert. Clear water, salt, sand, spices and frying food... and acrid turian sweat, and machine oil. I repeat the procedure and go deeper, but the scents are confused and hard to make sense of. 'There is a storm coming. It's highly likely they have a mech, and that someone already holds the end of that passage. It's the most logical place to take. Probably a sniper.'_

_'Okay. Tali, boot up a drone. If they have a mech it's your job to take it down. Thane, long range for the moment. See if you can take out the guy at the end of the passage; if we hold it stay sniping, if not, bullets and biotics. And remember, save the tenth for questioning.'_

_'I like it,' comments Tali'Zorah. 'Nice and balanced and equally distributed.'_

_'Anyone disables the tenth without killing him, I'll buy them a drink,' adds the commander._

_'Challenge accepted.' My rifle clicks as I unfold the scope. She's already glowing with biotic energy. Tali's drone sits quiet in her hand but flashes, ready to be deployed. Her other hand holds her shotgun._

_'Move out.'_

_She returns her visor to shielded mode and leads us down to the corner and along the east side of the square. She signals me to cross the entrance of the passage and to take cover on the other side of the wall. I strafe across, but nothing happens. The scanner reveals nothing. I raise the Viper and attempt to look down the passage, but the setting sun is blasting beams of bright light directly into the scope. Defiant. (No not now, later.)_

_'Shepard, the light is too strong. I can't get a clear view down the passage.'_

_'Not a problem. Switch up and run like hell after me.'_

_'Wait—' protests Tali, but my siha spreads her wings and, powered by a biotic Charge, kicks off a broken piece of wall and soars the length of the passage. There is a colossal crunch from the far end, and on an open comm channel, a male voice groans. Tali swears and launches her drone, vaulting the broken wall and matching my stride. 'Damnit Shepard!'_

_Reaching the rubble at the end of the passage I see the dazed mercenary staggering to his feet; no sign of the commander. But gunshots blast from the right side of the passage and smash the merc against the wall. A thermal clip falls from his belt and his rifle, now a twisted piece of metal, drops to the dust. The drone fires a few shots into the receding heat signature. My siha has had a rough landing from such a long Charge, and has crash-landed in a broken crate. She shakes the stars from her skull. Tali pulls her up from the floor with a hand. I crouch and arrange the broken body as best I can._

_'Thanks... Ugh. Well that solved that problem. Sorry to deprive you of a shot.'_

_'One for you already.'_

_'We could have sent the drone, Shepard. Why do you always insist on charging in?' protests Tali, angry in her fear._

_'Because I like it. It's fun.'_

_'Siha, the wind is picking up.'_

_'I noticed. Okay, that's storm's rolling in so I'm changing the plan. We take them all out and go for the ship. We hold this position till we count nine more corpses, or till the sand clears. Anyone sets a boot outside this place they're likely to be shot, not necessarily by mercs. Stay short range for now. Anything moves you shoot now and ask questions later. I'll buy both of you a drink afterwards.'_

_'What about civilians?' asks Tali meekly._

_'No one but those with ill business will be out in a sandstorm,' I comment. 'Drell lungs may be adapted to heat, but there is nevertheless a limit to how many grains of sand one can inhale and still be capable of breathing.'_

_'You might want to put your mask on then.'_

_'We are sheltered in this passage from the worst of it. I will be fine.'_

_'Thane that was an order. Suit up.'_

_With a great effort I stifle the memory of last night before I relive it completely, distracting myself with unfolding the breathing mask. It is difficult to keep privacy on a small ship, but this is something I would really rather not share with Tali'Zorah. I clip the mask in place and concede despite myself that it is easier to breathe with a filter in place._

_We wait. The sand whips and screams between the buildings; from behind us the setting sun sends beams through the haze but the light levels are falling rapidly. Tali's sensors pick up a heat signature at the end of the passage and she drains its shield in one go. The drone buzzes ahead and the spark of bullets glitter in the gloom._

_'Eight!' crows the quarian._

_'One for me, one for Tali. Your move, Krios.'_

_I turn, holstering my gun, and begin scrambling up the rubble at the end of the passage. As I arrive at the summit the wind batters me; I remain crouched while I scan for hostiles. The buildings above to my left are taller but all are ruined and abandoned; I'm not sure how stable they would be. Even before I met Shepard I wouldn't have used them: too high a chance of it collapsing before taking out the target._

_Bullets spatter into my shield from the other side of the rubble; I turn, draw my Tempest, blast the sand with return fire. Grunting from the three mercs below. Convenient. Crouch behind a slab and reload as more bullets thunder into the concrete, rapid-fire weapons with the boom of a shotgun. The concrete is disintegrating and still there's no break._

_Suddenly I have an idea. Drop silently down back to our side of the rubble, disentangle the grenade launcher from my siha's back. She's busy squinting through the dust for a merc in cover at the far end of the passageway. Deploy the grenade launcher, sight quickly, and fire. A deceptively quiet 'phut' sound, and the grenade curves through the air over the rubble and disappears. A scream of 'Incoming! Down down down!' from the other side, then a muted explosion. Three red dots vanish from my scanner._

_I breathe again and set down the weapon. Brutal for my tastes and training, but effective. Something I've picked up from her, she who used a missile launcher to kill the single mercenary who broke through my shield on the rooftops.'Blessed be... Five left.'_

_'I wondered where my M-100 went.'_

_'That's not fair, you got all your three in one go! Wait... I think there's someone setting up in that building, at ten o'clock,' Tali informs us. 'I'm picking up radio transmissions.'_

_'Comms?'_

_'No, moderated radio signals.'_

_'That's odd...'_

_I unfold my rifle and scan the building in the direction Tali indicated. Flickering movement but too much interference from the wind and sand to get a clear shot. 'Shepard, I'm going into the building. I'll take out the... whatever it is, and hold his position.'_

_'Good hunting, and stay safe.'_

_I nod, and scramble again up the rubble, heading to the right this time and into the ruin. As I go I can hear them arguing between gunshots about how many points a heavy mech is worth: Tali believes it should count for two and Shepard disagrees._

_The merc's comm channel has so far consisted of the usual battle cries, but now I begin to pick out instructions. I collapse the Viper and slip through the broken rooms, running along beams and flitting from shadow to shadow. Crouching at the end of an intact corridor, I take a moment to sort through the comm chatter. What I discern chills me. 'Shepard?' I murmur on our encrypted channel. 'They're planning to use a mech to blast us out with missiles.'_

_She swears. 'Not much heavy cover round here.'_

_'If we send my drone at it at point blank range the explosion will take it out. Or at least, most of it out,' suggests Tali through the rattle of gunfire._

_It suddenly occurs to me what the link is between the two. 'Ahhh... The sandstorm must be forcing them to use remote control to direct the mech. Hence the transmitter.'_

_'So if you sabotage the transmitter... __it will prove a very great problem. For the mercenaries.'_

_'But Shepard, the mech was my duty!'_

_'We may still need you if Thane can't get to the transmitter in time, Tali. And you can take all the pieces of it you want if we get control of it. If we don't, then we're going over the rubble wall ASAP and I'll give it a trail of grenades to follow while you do your stuff. Understood?'_

_'Yes ma'am.'_

_'Understood.'_

_'Move out.'_

_I take a moment to orientate myself, pulling my focus together to a razor edge, reaching out for those greater than I to guide my hands and feet. I know he is there and he does not know I am. I know how to kill him effortlessly and without needless suffering, something I am sure he does not know._

_Glide through the corridor and climb up into the open ceiling, scrambling between pipes and beams. Sand blasts and pulses through the chambers of the building like blood through a heart. I sink back into myself and let my training guide my body. Watch my hands wrap around a pipe and feel Rakhana's gravity welcome my limbs to the crumbling floor as I fold down from the ceiling and crouch on the ground. Still silent, still unseen. The mercenary is a human woman._

_Three paces forwards, one hand around her shoulder the other around to her face, and twist. Crunch. She slumps into my arms and I let her down to twitch out her life, crossing her arms. Eleven seconds and she is gone to the deep water. I peel her clear mask from her white-skinned head and close her green eyes. 'Be at peace...'_

_I come back into possession of my body and examine the transmitter. No witnesses, I am always sure of that, but soon they will register the comm silence. I break into it quickly with my omni-tool and soon I have configured a rough but serviceable control._

_'Shepard, I have control of the mech.'_

_'Good job!'_

_'What? No! You owe me, drell! That was my kill!'_

_'I have just secured valuable salvage for you, Tali'Zorah,' I protest, carefully looking out of the window hole. When I killed the technician, the heavy mech had stalled in its progress across the square; I reanimate it quickly and a wiry man in Blue Suns uniform removes his hand from his helmet. That was close: another second and he would have discovered the loss of the technician. 'It's heading to the passage from the south side of the square. Orders, siha?'_

_'Take it right into the mouth of the passage, then turn it round and blow them to hell.'_

_'It is likely they will soon discover the loss of the technician controlling the transmitter,' I point out._

_'If that happens first, just go for it. We're coming up into the building to join you. Tali, leave a drone here to distract them.'_

_I assume control of the mech, guiding it through the sand. Three mercenaries follow it, with presumably the lieutenant behind. 'Shepard, there's one merc unaccounted for.'_

_'Understood. He can be our tattle-tale.'_

_'Our what?'_

_'I'll explain later.'_

_I station the heavy mech at the entrance to the passage and power up the missiles. Hearing the rapid beeping, one mercenary starts jeering. I whip the mech into reverse and wheel it around, and loose off two missiles simultaneously at the ground. The explosion is horrendous, loud and cloudy and obvious. Disgusted, I switch off the mech. I kneel and arm myself to make this death clean, at least. The dust and blood haze clears on the next blast of wind, and through the storm I can make out the lieutenant staring at the pirated mech. He has one hand on his head and the dead technician's radio bursts into life. 'Sahira! What the fuck?'_

_The rifle kicks into my shoulder as I fire, and the lieutenant's head and hand are gone, disintegrated by the bullet. The explosion echoes around the square and is chased out by the winds. I eject the heat sink and disentangle my omni-tool properly from the transmitter. I want nothing more to do with the thing. True the plan was effective, but it went against all my training to execute it._

_I close myself into prayer until the other two arrive, and they courteously leave me to my devotions. Tali creeps past me and retrieves the transmitter. I hear my siha place her boot on the window ledge and imagine her examining the storm and the chaos below._

_Conflict swirls inside me like the sandstorm: my siha ordered my body to perform this action, but my soul cleaved to her; my soul entangled myself in her. Does that not make me responsible for this destruction? These were not the actions of a tool, yet I am a tool in her hands, moulded to her will. Is it my place to question the actions of one I believe to be a siha incarnate?_

_I open my eyes. The sun has almost disappeared behind the rubble and sends glowing beams through the dust. The sunset of my time in the universe... Sunset coloured eyes defiant in the scope... Dying warmth... Spreading colour... The hot glitter of light on the sea..._

_I stand up. My second siha pushes off the wall and comes to me. 'We figure the tenth mercenary is waiting with the ship,' she informs me. 'I'd like you to help Tali dismantle what she needs from the heavy mech and head to the shuttle. I'll meet you there in a little while.'_

_I bow my head. 'Understood.'_

_I have much to think about._


	7. Deal

Shepard had taken pride in surprising the tenth mercenary – the human hadn't noticed her approach at all and had almost wet himself when she tapped him on the shoulder and he span around into the muzzle of her gun. Stealth was a foreign concept to her methods, but sometimes it was fun to try it out: one of the many things she'd learned from the master assassin.

When assured that the rest of his squad were definitely out of the picture, the mercenary had crumbled in her hands, personally transferring their contract to her omni-tool. He was a hired gun, naïve as a baby hanar, and could only tell her that their squad had been formed by Captain Mjitch, on a freighter in the Faryar system, in Hourglass Nebular.

'We had no idea we were going after the Cerberus Spectre,' he babbled. 'We were just told to take down the black-eyed drell. I've told you all I know, I swear.'

'If you'd known who your target was, or who his friends were, you'd never have come,' observed Shepard. 'Mjitch must have known that. I'd steer clear of him if you want to live more than another few months.'

'Oh god. All right. I should have seen the signs. Sending us halfway across the galaxy to a cemetery world to kill a target with no name? Oh god. I'm an idiot.'

'Now are you going to run back home quietly?'

'Yes ma'am. Thank you ma'am.'

A wave of guilt prompted her to shout after him as he fled up the ramp of the small transport ship. 'If you fancy a change in career, mention my name to a Cerberus agent!'

The Blue Suns ship had landed on the other side of town, and Shepard had the whole of the settlement to traverse to get to the shuttle. The battle replayed in her mind as she walked. Sabotaging the heavy mech had reminded her of finding Garrus holed up in the apartment on Omega, and watching a similar incident unfold. She wished she could have got a better view of this one. The looks on their faces must have been priceless. Now that she thought about it, it puzzled her that Thane had shot the remaining Blue Sun in the head rather than just blasting him with the mech.

The sandstorm was abating in the twilight, and survivors were beginning to emerge. Occasional blasts of wind still flapped through door hangings and made primitive swing doors bang against the walls. A crowd was gathering in the square where the fight had taken place; the remains of the mech were piled neatly in a corner and were being picked over by a group of drell in grimy overalls with toolkits. A larger group stood at the entrance to the passage, heads bowed. She assumed they were disposing of the bodies in their own way, and left without further intervention.

The sky was glazed with blue-black by the time she reached the port and trudged through the sand to the shuttle. Strange stars pricked through the gloom. Tali'Zorah had been combing the abandoned storage modules and came running over as she approached. 'Shepard. Did you get the information?'

Shepard flashed her omni tool by way of an answer. Tali fell in step. 'I'm a little worried about Thane,' she said, selecting a private channel. 'After we finished with the mech he called the people of the settlement to give final rites to the mercenaries. Then he helped me carry the pieces back to the shuttle and he's been sitting inside in silence ever since.'

'It's not that unusual, Tali. Remember the time on the freighter with the batarian slavers and those horrible control collars? We didn't see him for two days after that.'

'I know, but that was before... Well. I just thought you should know. He is very lucky,' she added wistfully.

They climbed into the shuttle. The assassin had removed his breathing mask and was sitting dead straight in his seat with his hands clasped and his head bowed. He barely reacted as the airlock sealed and closed, and the shuttle prepared to force its way past the atmosphere and back up to the Normandy. Once more the graveyard of the drell fell away beneath the thrusters, and the planet was transformed into another jewel in the dark. The sun peered over the edge and flared bright against the blackness.

Thane remained silent and withdrawn all the way through the cargo hold. Tali peeled off at engineering and recruited Gabriella to help her unload the mech parts. In the elevator he spoke up. 'I will return to Life Support for the present time. I wish to meditate on recent events.'

'A lot happened in the last forty-eight hours,' she said gently, hefting her helmet beneath her arm. 'Take as long as you need.'

'Thank you.' He stepped out of the elevator.

'Thane. We will get that desert vacation. I swear.'

'Hmn.'

Not the the first time, as the elevator rose again, did Shepard consider the irony of the most arid section of the ship being Life Support. She sighed and headed to plot a course for the Hourglass Nebula.

* * *

'Hey commander, you think it's a good idea giving Tali all those pieces of metal and plastic to play with?'

'Why, Joker? What are you afraid of?'

'Nothin' in particular. I just get a little itchy when she comes back with new toys. Seems explosions and super-heated suns are never far off when that happens.'

'Haestrom was a one-off.'

'I guess. You know, everyone seems to spend a lot of time in their own little boxes on this ship. It'd be fun to get everyone together once in a while in the mess hall. You know, crack a few beers, kick back a bit, reminisce about all our near-death experiences...'

'I'm not so sure about that last part. But you have a point. It has been a while since we all got together.'

'Not forgetting the time you and Dr Chakwas got drunk on ice brandy...'

'She told you about that?'

Joker winked and fumbled beneath his seat. The contents of the bottle sloshed enticingly as he jiggled it before her.

'You...! … You know what,' conceded Shepard, abandoning herself. 'You're right. And I think I have an idea. Ship-wide call: tell everyone to assemble in the mess hall tonight.'

* * *

The mess was packed out, the crew divided into three large groups seated, or standing, around the tables. Shepard had rooted out every pack of cards on the boat and provided each group with a super-deck of four packs each. One quick crash-course later, and the first Normandy Cheat Championship had begun. Sgt. Gardner had been persuaded to release his stock of alcohol, and it turned out he had even acquired some turian spirits on their last shore leave. Garrus, it seemed, was stocking up. He was also turning out to be an incredibly good liar.

'Eight sevens,' he purred, setting down a handful of cards.

Several crew members exchanged glances, checking against their own hands. Crewman Patel was the first to break. 'Cheat!'

Garrus' eyes sparked, and he revealed his play card by card: six... seven... eight sevens. Patel hit her head on the table in frustration amid roars of laughter. She stretched out a hand and took the pile without looking. Shepard folded her arms and grinned. The round continued.

'Two nines.'

'One ten.'

'Hold up...' Patel was still sorting her huge pile of cards. 'I think have some of those somewhere...'

Shepard drifted on to Joker's table, which also included Jacob. This was a cautious game, with no one risking more than four cards at a time. A round went past in which nine out of nine players put down "Three twos".

'Oh come on!' she protested, unable to contain herself.

'Sorry commander, I think we're waiting to catch someone in the act,' grinned Jacob.

'A shot of tequila says your next call is wrong.'

A murmur of appreciation and anticipation went round the table. Jacob looked at her in surprise, then grinned. 'Alright, you're on.'

The game continued, the pile of cards in the centre growing larger and larger. Joker kept glancing at her, and when she met his eyes, he mouthed "Don't forget the lemon!" Bursts of laughter and table-slapping came from Garrus and Patel's table. Eventually Crewman Goldstein, after a long hesitation, played five Queens.

'Cheat.'

There was a collective 'Oooo,' from the players of this game. Goldstein bit her lip, biting back a huge smile. She glanced up at Jacob, then at Shepard, then back at Jacob.

'Damnit Goldy, flip the cards,' blurted Matthews.

'Better get yourself a shot glass commander.'

'Hold your horses, Jacob. Put the Chief out of his misery, Goldstein.'

Goldstein turned over her cards to reveal, all in a row, four Queens and a three of hearts.

'No!' Shepard threw back her head as the table erupted into cheers. Jacob half-stood and reached across to high-five with Goldstein, then stood fully and faced her.

'Ma'am, I believe you require a tequila.'

'I believe I do, Chief.'

More whoops from her crew as they headed for the kitchen counter, which had been transformed into a bar for one night only. Jacob slid behind and ducked down for a moment, and came up with two shot glasses, a salt cellar, and a lemon.

'I hate to see anyone drinking alone,' he said slyly, filling up the glasses. Shepard cut a slice of lemon in half, handed one piece to Jacob, and dished salt onto the smooth ledge of skin between her finger and thumb. With salt and lemon in one hand and the shot glass in the other, she became aware that the party they had left were hanging over the backs of the their chairs watching them.

'Here's to mammalian livers,' she said incoherently, and clinked glasses. In synch with Jacob, she licked the salt, swallowed the tequila down, bit down hard on the lemon slice, and slammed the empty glass upside down on the bar top. She high-fived Jacob with both hands, to the accompaniment of cheers from the card game.

'My god commander, did I just witness you betting _and _drinking?'

Shepard turned around with the piece of lemon still in her mouth, and Dr Chakwas' next sarcastic comment was lost in a rare burst of laughter.

* * *

'Shepard.'

'Hm?'

The world was a little fuzzy at the edges, and most of the humans had already staggered off to sleep. The remaining pocket of crew members had switched to Skyllian Five, and the remaining team members who'd not requested to be dropped off elsewhere after the suicide mission had clumped together: Jacob, Garrus, Tali, Jack and Miranda.

'We stripped down to two packs. Are you in?' asked Garrus, drawing out the chair next to him.

'Still Cheat?'

'Yes. It's an intriguing game.'

'Easy for you to say,' muttered Jack, shuffling the cards viciously. 'You're kicking our asses.'

She sat down and considered them all as Jack dealt. Her team. Miranda, honest about her role with Cerberus, kept suggesting to Shepard that they really try to convince Jack to head off and find her own way through the universe. Jack kept suggesting to Shepard that they throw the Cheerleader out of an airlock. Tali was formally attached to the Normandy and was devoted to herself, she suspected, in more ways than one. Jacob seemed content to roam around the galaxy with her for the time being, but she had little doubt that he'd move on when he felt ready.

Garrus she wasn't sure about. In a confusing moment right before the suicide mission she'd... been rather more honest with him than she intended, and he'd gently rejected her ill-thought through advance in view of her budding relationship with Thane. She had expected him to leave after their return, but he had stayed. Back on Omega, his embarrassment about his nickname had been very sweet, and it was rather ironic that before she recruited Thane, she had tended to think of the turian as her own archangel. Despite his new tendency to beat people before _and _after asking questions. He'd certainly rescued her ass a number of times.

She cleared her throat and sorted her cards. Slight movement in the corner of her eye made her look up, and from her position with her back to the main battery, she could see a humanoid shadow on the port side entrance to the mess. The high, open collar and head ridges were distinctive. She smiled to herself and continued sorting her cards.

'Good hand, commander?'

Shepard met Miranda's raised eyebrow with a smug look. 'We'll see.'

Tali, quarian hands ill-suited for manipulating multiple thin rectangles of card, had whipped herself up a card holder: a long thin pyramid of metal with a slot in the top to arrange her hand. She plucked three and laid them down. 'Three twos.'

'Four threes.'

'One four.' That was Jack, playing with character-shattering caution.

'Cheat,' challenged Jacob.

Jack slammed her fist into the table. 'God _damnit_!'

The team laughed as the fuming biotic collected the pile. 'Four fucking threes and don't you DARE call me out.'

So Miranda didn't lie. Interesting. Shepard selected her cards. 'Two fours.'

'Five fives.' Garrus laid his cards down in a fan. Jack glared at her hand, but said nothing.

'Two sixes.' Jacob laid his cards down casually.

Garrus caught Shepard's eye and winked through his ever-present visor.

'Three sevens.' Tali again, laying down her play with both hands.

'One six.' Miranda, smug and smiling.

'Two fives.' Jack, cautious again and defiant.

'Three sixes,' claimed Shepard, placing two sixes and an Ace onto the pile.

'Five fives,' purred Garrus, eliciting a snigger from Tali.

'Cheat,' said a deep voice.

The rest of the team looked up in surprise as the drell emerged from the shadows. Garrus' eye plates twitched. He turned over his cards one by one, revealing, with mounting excitement, five fives.

Thane remained still for a moment, hands clasped behind his back as the team cheered. Then he shrugged philosophically and drew out the empty chair between Tali and Jacob. 'In my defence, it has been a long while since I played at cards.' He retrieved the pile easily and sorted the cards. 'Five fives.'

'Cheat.'

His hand still on the cards he'd played, Thane turned a baleful look on the turian, who stared innocently back. Jacob and Miranda both snorted with glee.

Thane sighed tragically and drew the cards back into his hand. The table erupted in laughter again.

'But you have those cards! Why did you cheat?' protested Tali.

'I felt like taking a risk.'

Shepard wiped tears of mirth from her eyes, and discovered he was looking at her steadily.


	8. Luck

_He went like one that hath been stunned  
And is of sense forlorn;  
A sadder and a wiser man  
He rose the morrow morn  
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner")_

* * *

The card party had broken up in the early hours, and he hadn't followed her up to the loft. That was okay. She was beginning to understand why he needed time. He clearly hadn't taken much pride in pirating the heavy mech, and to an assassin of his calibre, pride was important. And a good thing it was, too. She was glad that he had come out of himself enough to participate a little in the games.

She was deleting some old mail at her terminal in the CIC some hours later when Joker piped himself through. 'Hourglass Nebula ETA one hour, commander.'

'Understood. Carry on Joker.'

She closed the terminal and headed for the loft to suit up. This would have been a beautiful mission to use Grunt's talents... She hadn't got to know the krogan nearly well enough, although if she was being honest, there wasn't really much to get to know. Images from his genesis in the tank mostly. He'd been accumulating memories with her; living a real life. His things had been received with sorrow by clan Urdnot on Tuchanka. There hadn't been time to recover a body. Maybe if they hadn't rigged the base to explode, they could have taken him home and given him proper rites...

Shepard pulled on her undersuit irritably, reflecting that if all the ghosts she carried with her were to stand in one place, there would be enough to populate a quarian cruiser. Not forgetting Ash, or Kio from the Reds back on Earth, or Akuze... _Stop stop stop._ That way lay the jaws of thresher maws.

The plan was simple. The plan was always simple. Plan A: attempt, at least, to accomplish the mission without firing a shot. Unlikely. Plan B then: charge in, get what they came for (in this case the location of the Blue Suns' employer), and leave. The wisdom or the logic of chosen targets in these sorts of assignments was always overridden by the morality of the situation. Shepard didn't care that most of the galaxy would think twice about boarding a freighter packed full of mercenaries and attempt to interrogate their captain. Mjitch was their key to finding the player of this game.

It wasn't that Thane couldn't handle these inexperienced idiots by himself. It's just that she preferred not to let him, on principle.

She fixed the last piece of armour in place and stretched, checking the flexibility. Her helmet under her arm, she moved to the lift. The elevator rolled her smoothly down to the 3rd deck.

He was lying on his back on the camp bed, tapered legs crossed at the ankles and his hands clasped on his stomach. His eyes were open, staring at the metal and plastic above his head. He didn't notice her entrance at first, and only when her boot squeaked against the regulation floor plating did he blink and sit up. 'I apologise. Siha. I...' He sighed. 'You must be upset with me. I... have not been very communicative. You are dressed,' he noted, belatedly. 'Are we close?'

'A half hour or so. I was a little confused, I admit, but I think I figured it out.' She sat next to him on the little bed and dangled her helmet in her hands. Their shoulders were touching. 'My actions on Rakhana created a lot of memories, didn't they. For the survivors.'

'I spoke with some of the people of Irtasaha before we left. The mercenaries had been less than courteous and they were glad to be rid of them.'

'You also asked them to bury the bodies.'

'Not bury. They will be consumed with fire and the remains given to the water.'

She accepted the correction with a nod. Presently she said, 'I created a lot of memories for you too. I get the feeling you weren't pleased with the way I handled the situation.'

'Nothing I cannot handle.'

'I didn't think you were. So I came by to tell you. The next time I order you to do something against your training, something that's going to affect you like this... '

'You...'

'You tell me to back the fuck off.'

He looked up and directly into her eyes, his mouth opening in surprise. She'd seen that look once before, on _that_ night. She couldn't help herself.

He kissed her back furiously, fired up by what she guessed was a complex mix of emotions. Then it was he who broke out this time, a half laugh falling from his lips into the air between them. 'Ha... Siha, no. You would not favour any of the others in this way. When we are working, treat me as you would anyone else.'

'I can't,' she said simply, her thoughts from the loft fresh in her mind. 'I have too many unhappy ghosts already. With the time we have, I... need to get this right. Call it my atonement if you like. For those I never considered. Let me protect you from myself.'

He tilted his head, searching her eyes. 'I prayed for you last night. I confess, at one point I... I realised I was praying _to _you. But mostly for.'

'No god can save my soul, Thane,' she murmured, feeling for a strange moment as though she were echoing someone.

'I felt better for it.'

'Good. That's good. Mm. Do you want to come on the freighter to find Mjitch? Or would you rather stay? I already have two squads in mind so please just tell me what you prefer.'

'I am yours to command. But should I not be required I had been thinking of composing a message to my son.'

'That's fine.' She put her hand on his knee and pushed herself into standing. Something he had said previously registered in her mind under a new light and she stood in front of him looking down. 'Thane... did you sleep at all last night?'

He looked down. '… Ahh heh... Define sleep.'

'Ah.' She placed her helmet down and straightened. 'Sleep...' She reached down and took his face in her hands, tilting it up. 'Sleep is when...' She raised her thumbs and caressed his main eyelids. 'You close your eyes...' He did so. '… and dream.' She ran her fingers into the fringes on either side of his neck and kissed him again. He made a muffled noise and melted in her hands.

* * *

Together with Garrus she headed down to Engineering to pick up Jack, then scrambled the shuttle. The MSV Ifrit was in orbit around Wenrum, a lone pawn circling a white knight. The glare of planet's bright surface obliged them to raise the sun filter of the shuttle view ports. 'Kowloon class, commander,' advised Joker over the comm. 'Old style. Shouldn't be too many on board. It's nowhere near dead in the water though so watch yourselves.'

'Any idea of the cargo?'

'Can't tell I'm afraid. Heads up.'

Faryar's light reflected sharply off the edge of the planet, then they were in the shadow, and closing in on the freighter hanging over the planet's night. Garrus shifted. Shepard considered him. 'How's your head?'

Garrus' eyes flared. 'It's been beaten into submission by Dr Chakwas' finest dextro-amino-friendly painkillers.'

Jack snorted. 'Can't tame your drink, birdboy?'

'At least I can remember all of last night.'

'Ouch.'

'Some time after the commander left I believe I remember you climbing on the table and-'

'Alright! Alright, she doesn't need to know about that! Whatever it was...'

Amused, Shepard looked from one to the other and received a glare from Jack and a twitch of the mouth from Garrus. 'Okay, time to focus. I'm going to try and get the location out of them without shooting them.'

'Shepard, these are _mercenaries_.'

'Yeah, they aren't going to let you get a fucking word in. Anyway they're all trigger-happy lunatics who deserve to be spaced.'

'I need to try. You'll be pleased to know I fully expect it not to work.'

The turian huffed a laugh. 'That's what I like to hear.'

'In that case we clean the ship.'

'My favourite.'

'Hoo yeah.' Jack stretched mentally and her skin lit up, the glow playing over her tattoos as she shifted.

A thud and a long clanking sound announced their arrival, and they unstrapped and stood while the airlock seals hissed into place. 'Boarding party incoming,' advised Joker. Shepard put on her helmet.

The airlock was surprisingly well-kept, free from bloodstains and other dirt. The door at the far end slid open once the pressure had equalised, and three mercenaries stepped in. All armed, all helmeted, all brawn. 'This is a private freighter. Who ever you are, you have no authorisation here. State your business.'

Shepard had a second to consider: intimidate or cooperate?

'I'm a Spectre, I don't need anybody's authorisation anywhere. I'm here to speak with Mjitch.'

The lead merc appeared to appraise her. That by itself made her want to shoot him in the crotch. 'Follow me.'

Behind and to her left she heard Jack's 'Ugh!' of protest.

The mercenaries led them through the huge belly of the ship, stacked haphazardly with containers and storage modules. Once you'd seen one Kowloon class, you'd seen them all. Discreetly checking her radar, Shepard counted about twenty crew.

At the head of the cargo bay was the regulation office, into which their guards motioned them. Inside a thick-set white woman in Blue Suns armour was working the terminal. 'What?'

'Are you Captain Mjitch?'

'Who wants to know?'

'Commander Shepard.'

'The Spectre?' Only now did the woman turn around. She wore a targeting visor, and her pale hair was slicked back over her skull. 'Honoured, commander. What can I do for you?'

Garrus made a tiny noise of disgust. Shepard considered quickly. From the low-key greeting in the airlock, to this conversation so far, it appeared no one had expected her: the tenth mercenary therefore hadn't fled back to the freighter. So either Mjitch was bluffing, and knew exactly what was going on but was waiting to see how Shepard would play it, or she was genuinely unaware of the Rakhana team's failure. How likely was it that Lt. Ation would have omitted to update her? Fairly likely, she decided, applying her knowledge of human male-female power relations. Best to take the element of surprise then.

'Your team is dead, Mjitch. The drell on Rakhana have dealt with the bodies. I want to know who is paying you to kill the black-eyed drell. A drell who not only happens to be a master assassin, but also happens to be a member of my crew.'

Shepard had the satisfaction of watching Mjitch's features start from unsurprised and sarcastic dismissal of the deceased team, and rise to mouth-opening dread as she realised just how screwed she was.

Shepard folded her arms and shifted her weight. 'So. Start talking.'

Mjitch turned back to the monitor for a moment. 'Ation, you cretin... Look, commander,' she continued, typing without looking around. 'Even if I wanted to help you out, I couldn't. My orders came on an encrypted transmission and the file erased itself about forty-eight hours ago.'

'Your terminal must have some record of it.' Shepard had long learned never to trust anyone who types with their back to you while they are talking. She shifted her weight again and used the movement to energise her shields.

'Nope. But if you've killed my team I'm going to be in deep shit as it is. I might be able to pacify my employer by handing in your blood-stained helmet as an offering.'

'Just you fucking try it...' intoned Jack.

'Look, captain, we're not leaving without this information. If you give it to us freely we won't have to lay out more bodies, and we should be able to remove your employer from the field of play. You wouldn't have to worry about retribution.'

'Sorry Shepard. There's the Blue Suns reputation to consider into the bargain. Ation was a bloody fool, but I won't be the one who surrenders confidential information to a Spectre.'

Mjitch wheeled around and powered off a round from her assault rifle, but Shepard and her squad were already diving for the door. 'Garrus crowd control, Jack, shotgun. The starboard wall is clear for cover.'

Shepard sprinted across in a blaze of crossfire, followed closely by Jack. Garrus gave them cover and vaulted behind another container nearer the door to Mjitch's office. 'They're organised, Shepard.'

'For all the good it will do them.'

Like the freighters themselves, firefights within them tended to blur together after a while. This one was only remarkable for Jack blasting an entire container and sending it toppling backwards, taking out four particularly stupid mercs in one go. The container doors had burst open and scattered crates of platinum everywhere, and a few boxes of eezo. Shepard switched to incendiary and managed to ignite a hub of cooling fluid, taking out another three in the blaze.

As she'd suspected, Mjitch had made a run for the stairs, and, tangled in mercenaries Shepard had been unable to prevent the captain from getting to the higher deck.

'We have to take out Mjitch before she snipes us.'

'I'm on it.'

Jack blasted herself off towards the stairs, leaving Garrus and Shepard to cover her ass. 'Other than her, don't break anything!' Shepard felt compelled to yell after her.

'Did you really want this to end peacefully?' asked the turian, ejecting his clip.

'I thought I should try.' Bullets spat into her shield from the left. Shepard turned and sent a Shockwave along the wall, and a wailing mercenary went sailing through the air across the cargo bay. She ducked back behind the module just as the wall behind her exploded, a hole punched into it by a high calibre round. 'Shit. Mjitch is in position. Jack, get on with it! Garrus, safest places on this side of the room?'

'The tallest blocks. Shepard, I think I know where she is; I could get her from here.'

'You do and I won't be responsible for Jack afterwards. Hold for now. Rifle the rest if you want the practise.'

'With pleasure.'

Shepard was running out of shots for her Carnifax. Either she switched up, gave her biotics a workout, or left cover for more clips. She decided to do the latter, and crouching, edged to peek out of her current cover when the rifle boomed again. Her shield shattered and the impact knocked her backwards. 'Uuuagh!' Her neck felt like it had been used as a varren whip. Dazed, she staggered back behind the tall module and slumped against it while she struggled to control herself. Her vision was spiked with red. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. _Too close._

'Shepard!'

'I'm okay. Hggh...'

'Damnit Jack, move move move!'

'Fuck's sake! AaaaaAAAAGH!' Jack's cry of rage was accompanied by a purple-blue explosion from the top level, and two bodies came sailing down. A tattooed blur shot from one side of the upper level to the other, swept a pale-skinned mercenary with a rifle in its wake, and disappeared into the office at the far end. Through hazy eyes, Shepard watched with satisfaction as the wall popped and bulged out in odd places as the biotic did her work.

Garrus had leaped between containers and crouched at her side. 'Shepard, what's the damage?'

'Feel like an elcor stood on my head.'

'That's it?!'

'Shields are recovering. No breaches.'

'Damnit Shepard, if I had your luck...'

'Are we clear?'

'Not yet, but they're distracted by the eh, "discussion" happening in the top room.'

'Let's clean up. You got any pistol clips? I was scouting for some when my head exploded.'

Garrus gave her a handful, but put his hand on her shoulder before standing. 'Don't scare me like that again. I don't have much jaw left of my own to pick up off the floor. Plus it's distracting.'

'Do my best but I can't promise anything.' She reloaded, shook her head once more and checked the radar. The pounding and banging from upstairs had ceased. She crept out and sprinted forwards, noting someone in cover to her left. She peeped out and shot him in the shoulder when he strafed out. The incendiary bullet made short work of what remained of his life. On the other side of the bay, Garrus had climbed quietly up on top of a pile of containers and had his rifle ready. Shepard fired a couple of shot across and a merc dodged out of the way, right into view of the turian. A crack, and a bump as the corpse bounced off the container, and silence. He reloaded and the targeting laser appeared in the far corner, and Shepard only noticed someone was there when the body dropped into view, sprawling a pistol across the floor.

'Hmn.' Garrus ejected the clip and swung down from his perch. 'Clear.'

'Good work. Jack? Status?'

'Shepard, get up here. You need to see this.'

* * *

**AN**: I see you, out there in the stats... Dear readers, if you could spare a moment to drop me some concrit I'd be very grateful. Thank you for reading!


	9. Recall

'You were very lucky, commander.'

Currently, Shepard didn't feel so lucky. She was sitting with her legs dangling from a bed in the med bay, head hanging low, while Dr Chakwas prodded and pressed at the right side of the base of her neck. 'I may have already mentioned that what you're doing is painf— Aagh...'

'Good, good. Well, looks like merely grade three whiplash, though by everyone else's logic you should be a headless corpse. Whatever upgrades you added to your suit, they were damn well worth it. I'll give you some painkillers and an e-booklet of exercises to ease the muscles, but you'll be fine in a few days. Someone up there is looking out for you, Shepard.'

'Spare me the metaphysics.' She pulled her sleeves up and zipped up her jumpsuit, raising her head gingerly. Dr Chakwas had her back to the beds and was fiddling in a cabinet. Shepard slipped down and winced as her neck protested. 'Ugh... How's the rest of the crew doing?'

'Oh fine. Garrus is still self-conscious about his scarring but I keep telling him I can't do anything about it. Maybe he'd listen to you on that account; you did requisition the platinum for other uses.'

'And... just a quick question.' Shepard had been fighting with herself over this one. 'If a person with Kepral's Syndrome is coughing up blood, what does that mean?'

Dr Chakwas raised her eyebrows. 'May I ask how often?'

'I'm not sure.'

'I'm afraid more than once every few days is a sign of advanced deterioration in the lungs, indicating that the disease is beginning to spread to other organs. If it's only sporadic, it's still not a good sign good, but the patient still has a fair few months.'

'Thanks. I think.'

'Take care of yourself, Shepard.' The doctor's clear eyes were understanding as she handed over the little bottle of pills.

Shepard left medical rolling her head awkwardly, and discovered Tali and Jacob had been waiting in the mess for her. 'Garrus told us everything,' explained Tali. '_Keelah _Shepard! You should be dead!'

'It wouldn't be the first time.'

'You can add "shot in the head" to the list of things that can't keep you down,' commented Jacob with a smile. 'As opposed to taking shots, you know, of alcohol. Which also can't keep you down.'

'Though both leave you with a headache. Anything happen here while we were gone?'

'Most of the team were in the comm room listening to the fight. We kind of wished Samara was still here to give us an idea of what Jack did to the captain. It sounded... extreme.' This wasn't the first time Jacob Taylor had wished to know more about Jack, but he was currently too scared to go ask her.

'I didn't ask for details, but I can tell you the aftermath was impressive.'

'Did you get the files?' asked Tali.

'Yes, what was left of them. And more besides. EDI's running them now. Thanks for coming to check on me Tali, Jacob. I wish I could stop awhile but I feel kinda sick; I need to get some rest.'

'Of course.'

'See you commander.'

Shepard groaned in pain again as she automatically turned to wave them off, and headed up to the loft with one hand pressing the side of her neck. She discovered Thane inside, feeding the fish, and the pain receded. His long figure was lit by the glowing tank, and the blue light slipped and glided over his skin and clothes. 'Hey.'

'Siha.' Shepard passed him, trailing her hand across his shoulders as she did, and sat on the bed. He closed the top of the tank and brushed his fingers off. 'How are you feeling?'

'Surprisingly good, considering. Pain in my neck but can't complain. How much did you hear?'

'I stayed to the end.' He came down the step and stood before her. 'I was proud of you.'

'Ah... You might think differently if you'd have seen the captain's corpse...'

'The captain's death was, I think, unavoidable. Letting Jack unleash herself is always a hard tactical decision. But Mjitch, after all, knowingly sent those fifteen mercenaries to their deaths on Rakhana, and I do not doubt that removing her from the galaxy has made it brighter.'

'Actually... I have a horrible feeling Mjitch was just as ignorant as those she sent. She bluffed it off but... The terminal was a mess – the transmission with the captain's contract had some sort of virus which was running riot on the system.' Registering her growing unease, he sat next to her. 'We recovered fragments and EDI's reconstituting the data now. But... it looks like the original transmission came from somewhere near the Imir Relay...'

That stunned him. 'That would be in the vicinity of... No... No that can't be possible...' He stood sharply and stormed a few paces one way, then back the other. Shepard felt her insides clench: it disturbed her more than anything she'd ever witnessed to see him, usually so poised and controlled, unable to keep still for agitation. He tapped the back of one hand against the palm of the other. 'Hmm. I... did not expect this.'

'Definitely left field.'

'But... why?'

His question was so simple and so plaintive that pain or no pain, she stood quickly and grasped his shoulders. ' "I know not, but I'm sure 'tis safer to avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born." A famous human writer said that about five hundred years ago, and since I read it it's stuck with me my entire life. Although in this case 'avoid' means 'remove'. Sometimes there are things you have to deal with, without thinking too hard about them.'

He didn't seem to register the advice. 'I... need some time to process this.' Shepard assumed this meant he wanted to retreat to his table and lifted her hands. 'Wait. Don't go.'

'What?'

He put his hands on her shoulders and pressed his heavy forehead to hers. 'I nearly lost you today. Again. It scared me and I wish to remain close to you. But if you are busy, I understand...'

'Nothing to do right now but wait on EDI.' She put her arms around him. He moved his hands, one arm wrapping around her body, the other hand laying flat on the back of her neck. 'Ahhh... ow, but that's nice... Could you just... to your left... ahh...'

He made a deep noise of contentment. They remained that way for several minutes, she resting her head on his shoulder, he firmly rubbing and working the muscles on the side of her neck where the sniper shot had snapped her head sideways. She opened her eyes and discovered she was watching the fringe of velvet red skin shift in rhythm with his breathing. The sound of thick coughing intruded from her memories, and she gripped him tighter.

'Thane... I'm not sure where this trail will lead us, or to whom. But I'm going to follow it to the end and put a stop to it. Then I'm taking you to another desert.'

He tightened his arms, cupping the back of her head, and the warmth between them was like that of a small sun.

* * *

_Rumbling. Spark awake and reach for gun. Dark outside, glowing unfamiliar stars light the grassy plain with silver. Rumbling again. Roll off the mat and reach for helmet, equip over tightly-braided cornrows, peek outside the shelter. To the west the plain rolls away down to the sea. In other directions a range of mountains. Sentries looking confused. Beckon for M'Pele and Chen to follow. _

_Perimeter check. No breaches. Still rumbling and shaking. Intermittent. Not seismic. Deep, deep sense of unease, of being watched, of exuding scent for predators._

_Huge heave of the earth, shards and clods of grass tumbling, and the thing forces its way into the sky, screaming in five pitches at once and all of them angry. It protrudes grotesquely above the planet's surface and hangs over the humans, who are by now all awake, though dazed by the sound of the thing, and scrambling for weapons. The worm wretches and a jet of acid arcs down, and five marines and a container dissolve. What good are weapons against this savagery?_

_'Fall back! Move, move! Go go go go go go go!'_

'Siha! Wake up.'

'Move it...!'

'Commander Shepard!'

Military training kicked in, and hearing her rank broke the link, and Shepard came back to herself to find she was twitching and gasping and already sitting upright in the blue dark. 'Agh...' The stretched muscles in her neck were pulling rhythmically in time with her racing pulse. She reached over and pressed at the skin, realising she was damp with cold sweat. 'Ah shit...'

'What was that?'

'A dream. I was... back on Akuze. When the first maw attacked.' She flipped the pillow up against the back of the bed and sat back, kicking off the sheet and forcing herself to stretch out. Thane was distracted for a moment by the sight of her full-length body, sleek black skin bared on the white sheet. He leaned forward and ran a hand from her ankle all the way up to her shoulder. Shepard felt goosebumps prickle up in the wake of his touch.

'You are here, now, with me,' murmured the drell.

She closed her eyes, and the maw reared up in her vision. She shuddered and drew a deep breath. 'Aoki, Al-Tamimi, Ashkenazi, Aziz, Bhatt, Chalabi, Chen, Demir, de Santis, Diaz, Fischer, Flores, Gowda, Haddad, Hanna, Hasan, Hussein, Jukic, Kaya, Khan, Kouyate, Kwang, Lang, Ledesma, Lehtonen, Le Roux, Lin, Maddox, Martin, Maldonado, Melik, M'Pele, Nwosu, Orujov, Pant, Pradham, Qaderi, Rebane, Roy, Sadaty, Sandhu, Shekhawat, Singh, Sy, Tamada, Tremble, Vukovic, Xhafa. And poor Toombs. Lest we forget. Lest _I _forget.'

'My translator struggled with that, but I assume those were the names of those you lost that day. Kalihira keep them safe.'

'That was the night I found my battle sleep... Withdraw from feeling, or be consumed by it. I withdrew and... the punishment is that I carry their ghosts with me.' Her breathing had calmed under Thane's caresses, though she was still hugging herself tightly across her ribs. She brought her legs up and crossed them; the assassin rested his hand on her right thigh. Something occurred to her. 'Do drell dream?'

'What do you mean by "dream"? The word has no equivalent in my language.'

'Oh. Well. I've never asked any other species, but for humans, during a stage of our sleep cycle, our minds tend to reorganise and process information from the previous few days, and the result is an unconscious vision, I guess. Usually they don't make a lot of sense and can be pretty funny, but sometimes we relive traumatic experiences. Apparently it keeps us sane.'

'Ah. You recall memories when you sleep?'

'Yyyyes, but nowhere near perfectly. Usually it's a few jumbled together with some subconscious hints thrown in. The nightmares, the bad dreams, tend to be accurate... I guess you could say I just experienced a recall of Akuze. I thought it was real until you woke me up.'

'I see. I would assume that our eidetic memories make this process redundant.'

'But...' The reality was dawning on Shepard. 'You recall memories as violently as we dream? My god. How do you survive?'

'Bad times are thoroughly unpleasant to recall, and waking we're reassured that reality is different. Recalling good times is better, but recognition of the memory's evanescence is... somewhat bitter-sweet.' As if to prove his point, his eyes focused beyond her and his hand froze. '_I wake once and watch her sleep, soundless and still. Her black skin glows in the light; draws me like a magnet. I could never lose her to the darkness. Lightly, mindful of the irritation my touch causes, let my fingers trail over her round face, her flat nose and full lips, and the dark oceans of her eyes now covered by fringed eyelids._' He drew a deep breath and cleared his throat sheepishly.

By way of response, Shepard leaned against him in the darkness. His grip on her leg went tight and firm, and he pressed his face into her hair.

* * *

_**AN:** Headcanon: The formula "You are here, now, with me," is used when reassuring a drell who has emerged from a recall and seems disorientated or confused. For best results the speaker should make physical contact._


	10. Junk

Shepard had pulled all the data from their last few "excursions" onto her omni-tool, and was projecting the various bits and pieces around the comm room. She thought better on her feet. EDI had struggled with the fragmented files from the MSV Ifrit's system, but through comparison and some logical guesswork with the contract from the tenth mercenary (where had he gone anyway?), and the data retrieved from the turian's PDP and the desert skiff computer, a picture was beginning to form.

And everything pointed towards the Imir relay.

The initial contract from the MSV Ifrit had been fried beyond repair by the virus, but Mjitch had transmitted a redacted copy to the Rakhana team for reference. From these two, and fragments in the datapad, EDI had been able to reconstitute two thirds of the thing. The long-range buoy signature definitely originated from the Imir relay, and the redacted copy contained snippets of forwarding code that suggested the source was somewhere in the vicinity of Relic.

She'd encountered the system once during her sweep of the Eagle Nebula, and had fired a probe down onto a tiny, angry-looking purple planet appropriately named "Rough Tide", in pursuit of a promising concentration of platinum. The probe had been confiscated, and the Normandy had received an exceedingly polite transmission informing them that the planet had enough trouble already with alien ejaculations and would they please be good enough to probe elsewhere. Joker and Shepard had laughed themselves sore.

The employer, however, had been very thorough. No trace whatever of his or her identity remained in any of the transmissions – no unique piece of code or signature, nothing. Shepard was beginning to wonder if this hadn't been a face-to-face agreement, with a middleman handling the transmissions from some sort of public terminal. It all smelled like a badly-executed hit. Except...

Except, she was getting the very strong feeling that if this person had really wished to remain totally hidden, they were capable of it. These weren't just mistakes: this was a trail, a line, and the unfortunate mercenary team on Rakhana had been the bait. By her own admission, she was hooked. Someone was drawing them in, providing just enough pieces of information to enable them to follow the line back to the waiting net. And from there, the skillet?

'Not on my watch.'

Her tenacity would be the death of her. Again.

She rounded the table and walked into another projection. This was the other disturbing thing on the Ifrit's system, the thing which had alarmed Jack so much when she discovered it. Records of transactions between Mjitch and an information broker on Illium. Two-way transfers. Mjitch had been buying and selling on the side. To Liara T'Soni.

Recognition of this fact had been like a punch in the solar plexus, and she'd compiled the information quickly and protected it on her own omni-tool for later analysis. She wanted to believe it was a mistake, but the code signature was undeniable. Only Garrus and Jack knew so far, and when all this was over she was going to take them both quietly to Illium and sort this out face to face. How had that shy and bumbling archaeologist they'd rescued from Therum turned into such a ruthless salesperson? She hoped, for Liara's sake, that someone had blackmailed her into selling on their location.

She rubbed at her neck and collapsed all the files. Dr Chakwas' analgesic had definitely eased the pain, and Thane's massaging hands had all but banished it, except now the area was tender with a rash after over-exposure to the drell's fine scales. Last night's nightmare had been more intense than usual, an occurrence which tended to coincide with more tender contact between them. Mordin had provided her with a concoction to keep off the worst of the hallucinatory effects when she was awake (sometimes vivid spots of colour and lights intruded even after dosing herself up), but it seemed it couldn't prevent her from dreaming.

They still had time before arriving at the relay. She headed back up to the loft.

* * *

'Listen up. We dealt with the pawns on Rakhana, and the knight in Blue Suns armour near Wenrum. Now we're going for the queen.'

She paused to look each of them in the eye. The comm room was not her favourite place to give these kinds of talks, but sometimes it was necessary. At least this way she could gauge reactions from everyone at once.

'Someone will be waiting for us. Whoever this queen is, they are intelligent, cunning, and therefore extremely dangerous. They're gonna be hard to find. And they'll probably be expecting us.

'But we know they know, and that flips the odds in our favour. The irritating thing is that I'm afraid I have very little further information to give you. I don't know where this person is located – planet-side, on a station, on a ship... I don't know how many people they are likely to have surrounding them. And I don't know who they are.'

'So we're flying blind? Into a fucking _trap_?' summarised Jack, incredulous.

'It will give us credibility,' quipped Garrus. 'We certainly won't _look_ like we know what we're doing.'

'The potential problem is that the queen might have realised that we know,' Miranda pointed out.

'You mean that she knows we know she knows?'

'Shuttit Garrus,' snapped Jack.

'Even if she does know we know,' Tali broke in, 'or... whatever, the problem is finding her. We know she's in the Relic system but what planet?'

'First Land,' supplied Thane quietly. 'It's the most heavily populated area in the system. Potentially Rough Tide, but that is less likely I think. And I believe I have some idea of who the queen is.'

All bodies in her field of vision shifted as they sat up straighter and leaned forward to catch the drell's speech. Thane was hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, the position uncharacteristic enough to make even Jack pay attention.

'Shepard is right. All the information we've gathered is pieces we've been permitted to discover. Someone is creating a trail. I recognise the pattern. It's a hunting technique designed to snare certain sentient lifeforms. The hunter provokes the prey with force, then with the promise of revenge, leads it back to the waiting gun. Some drell assassins choose to operate in this way. I'm not sure why. I believe it has something to do with followers of the Enkindlers preferring to share the responsibility for their actions.'

'Go on.'

'I have only once encountered an assassin who used this method,' continued Thane, recovering his poise and sitting up. 'Her name is Nerar Natai. We... had been assigned the same target, a slaver. I ended up chasing after him as he followed the trail left by her mercenaries. She is exact, calculating... and very skilful.'

'Do you have any idea where she might be?'

'I suspect on a station called Long Reach, in orbit around First Land. It's the largest and most populous. If she is not on board, someone there will know where she can be found.'

'Do you think she'll send a welcoming party?'

'Logically, she must know the identity of her target. It's therefore safe to presume she knows we recognised her methods.'

'Oh so she does know we know she knows we know,' said Garrus gleefully. Jacob sniggered, and Thane paused. Shepard saw something that might have been a smile. Then the moment passed.

'Infinite regressions aside, Shepard, I do not think it likely she will send anybody to greet us. She must know by now that Mjitch has fallen. She will therefore expect us, but... not with a show of force.'

'I see. Thank you. That simplifies things a little.'

Thane nodded and withdrew from the spotlight. Miranda had been fidgeting, and Shepard turned to her.

'I'm a little uneasy about how we're going about this. You're suggesting we drop out of the relay, beetle across to Relic, dock with this station and expect her to just _be_ there?'

'Do you have any ideas?'

'Korlus.'

There was a wave of discontent amongst the team. 'Oh god Miranda you can't be serious!' protested Jacob. 'I was hoping to never set foot on that varren-infested pile of garbage ever again!'

'I'm sceptical,' admitted Shepard, biting back her own retort along similar lines. 'But go on.'

'We know the Blue Suns have a significant presence there. Judging by the comm buoy data, it's highly likely that Mjitch's instructions came via the planet,' reasoned Miranda. 'So if we drop by there first we have a chance to hack their system and recover a full copy of that contract. Presumably the missing information will be intact, like payment details and a contact in case of problems. Then we run that data, sneak out to First Lake or Second Land or whatever, and surprise this Natai by showing up on her doorstep.'

'You're actually starting to convince me,' mused Shepard. 'And... heheh. I'm beginning to have a ridiculous idea that might make it even simpler...'

'Nothing I love more than a well-implemented ridiculous idea,' commented Garrus, edging forwards on his seat. 'This sounds like it could be fun.'

* * *

The shuttle touched down in a rare open space amid the heaps of debris, piled into mountains of scrap metal and plastic. Shepard, Jacob and Jack climbed out and armed themselves. Miranda and Garrus had agreed to hold back in the shuttle and wait; meanwhile the human was masked up, armed with a couple of cans of paint and some card, and was preparing to stencil a new paint job onto the turian's old blue armour.

Shepard's idea complimented Miranda's plan. It was simple, and also ridiculous. Before setting off, every single member of her team had used her traditional private talk with them to express this, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Jacob had apparently once read a e-comic in which something similar happened. Thane had been incredulous and worried, instantly realising the number of things which could go horribly wrong, though he was pleased about the subterfuge. Tali wished the Blue Suns included quarians so she could go along. And Garrus had almost kissed her.

She and her squad began navigating the complex maze of pathways through the trash. She'd had to order radio silence after it turned out Jacob's laughter every time he thought about what they were doing couldn't be controlled.

Commotion from up ahead pulled them up short, and they edged forwards towards a clearing in the scrap. A freelance krogan and five mercenaries were huddled around something on the ground and seemed to be in debate about their next move. Shepard reanimated her comms. 'Almost perfect... Jacob and I will take out the krogan. Jack, I need you to keep the mercs from getting to us, but do _not _damage them. Do you understand?'

'… ugh. Fine. Bitches won't know what's hitting them.'

'Jacob, light up. Burn off his shield then pull or push or whatever. If he gets too close I'll Charge him down, then we retreat a bit and try again. And at all costs keep him off Jack.'

'Understood commander.'

Shepard directed them into position, Jacob at the corner, Jack behind a compacted slab of junk, herself next to Jack. A memory from her previous visit to the planet leapt back into her head with teeth and claws. 'Ah, Jack, you're also on varren duty. Take the little bastards down before they get to us. If we're distracted while dealing with the krogan, that could all go south very quickly.'

'Gotchya. Mad dogs and Englishmen.'

'And krogan,' added Jacob mischievously.

'And krogan. Wait, what?'

'All right team, let's do this.' Shepard rolled her eyes and blew out a breath. 'Ready... Go go go!'

The firefight was short and one-sided. The krogan forced his way through their bullets and was three steps into a blood-lust charge when Shepard slammed into him with her own biotic-fuelled Charge, and both fell back dazed. Jacob stepped in and Pulled the hapless krogan into the air, and Shepaed recovered herself enough to roll onto her back and empty a heat sink's worth of incendiary pistol shot into the great body as it glided above her. The krogan slammed into the rust not two feet from her, and died.

Meanwhile Jack had her hands full, releasing Shockwave after Shockwave to keep the mercs on their knees and effectively juggling with three furious varren. As soon as the krogan went down she cried out and sent a massive spherical Shockwave bursting from her hands. The ground rippled, grey dust rising from the metallic residue on the ground, and all five mercenaries went shooting off in all directions, slamming into the piles of junk and slumping, some dead, some just concussed. Jacob and Shepard both had the presence of mind to throw up a Barrier, which dissipated with the impact but minimised its damage. As it was, Shepard slid a few feet backwards and banged into the slab of junk they had been using as cover, and Jacob went staggering back into a mountain. In the following silence, something dislodged itself and tumbled down into the dust.

The biotic looked up, breathing heavily and grinning. 'I'm finishing the bastards.' She stood and stalked off in the direction of the nearest groaning mercenary.

Shepard had been about to deny her on principle, but the plan required total secrecy. 'I can't believe I'm saying this, but don't spoil the uniforms.'

'Fuck you!'

The pain in Shepard's neck had reawakened with the kinetic damage from the Charge and Jack's shockwave. She tilted her head awkwardly and picked herself up from the ground, using the slab for support. Jacob had recovered faster and was already stripping a corpse. Jack had killed one mercenary and now moved on to another, stamping on the neck of a prone varren along the way. It died horribly, with a sharp, panicked, gurgling yelp. Shepard felt intensely glad Thane wasn't here to see this slaughter. For a moment she wished there was someone she felt she could pray to.

'Good job. Jack, thank you. I imagine that was hard for you.'

'Spare me... bitch... Anyway, fucking... worth it for the... satisfaction now. Hgm!' Jack answered between biotically-charged punches, the last rupturing the mercenary's oesophagus. Blood and bubbles fizzed out of the opening.

'Jesus,' swore Jacob, turning away. 'Still. Better them than us, right?'

'Right. Jack when you're... finished... help us strip the bodies. We need four complete suits of armour and we'll keep the fifth for spares.'

'Shepard, I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this.' Jacob was practically hopping from foot to foot.

'Hold your victory dance till we get out of this alive,' Shepard warned him. 'As you said, disguise always works in comic books. Let's just hope these mercs are as stupid as they are in the vids...'


	11. Honey

In the end all five of them set off from the shuttle, the four humans encased head to toe in lousy Blue Suns armour and Garrus gleaming with fresh paint. The mercenary band they had taken out had helpfully carried a PDP with an IFF and access codes for the station a couple of klicks away. The thing on the ground they had all been examining when Shepard and her squad had hit them turned out to be a stabiliser designed for a small drive core, recently ejected onto the surface; presumably they'd been arguing over whether to bother turning it in or not. Miranda and Jack were carrying the thing between them.

Beneath her veneer of casual confidence, Shepard was boiling with curiosity and anxiety. The mercenary's datapad had again saved her a lot of trouble by providing a blueprint of the station, which turned out to be cobbled together from storage modules from another damn Kowloon. The terminals, however, were not marked, and she was counting on EDI for that part. She was on the point of deciding to split the team up; keep someone with her and send the other three off to investigate separately, perhaps to drop off the salvage and get some gossip. In that case Jack would have to stay with her. There would be no way Miranda could keep her in check.

But if they were splitting into two groups, it was imperative that they remain undetected. If the entire station turned against them that would be upwards of a hundred mercenaries to deal with, plus at least that amount again in LOKI mechs. Even with the blueprints, they would be easily overwhelmed without their habitual armour. There was no way she could take another shot to the head in this piece of tin.

No, they had to remain secret. Shepard was confident she could talk her way out of any difficulties, and Garrus would make an effective spokesperson for the Cerberus operatives. She would laugh about Archangel later.

'Alright, listen up. Once we get to the base we'll split up: Garrus, Jacob and Miranda will take the drive core over to engineering. You'll probably then have to report to someone about the circumstances. Jack and I will head for what passes for their CIC. We'll get the data we need while you three casually pump any mercs you find. Rendez-vous back at the shuttle in two hours. If you get the feeling anyone is starting to get suspicious, you pull out straight away. Jack, you'll answer to me as captain. Garrus, you're now lieutenant. Any questions?'

'Can I be corporal, _captain_?' asked Miranda sarcastically.

'What do we do if our cover is blown?' asked Jacob.

'Whatever happens, do _not_ blow your cover. With this crappy gear, if we're discovered on the inside our chances of survival are slim to none. But if the worst comes to pass, get to the garage. There should be something with wheels in there we can borrow. Am I clear?'

Assent all round. Shepard blew out a breath and flexed her neck again. She really shouldn't have Charged. Head-butting a krogan was a terrible idea anyway, much less meeting a charging one head-on when powered by cybernetic implants. This had all seemed like such a funny thing to do back on the ship, but now, walking on the planet's slick surface with four lives in her hands, her opinion of her own plan was dropping rapidly.

'Heads up. Jack, hand that thing over.'

Jacob and Miranda took charge of the stabiliser, and Garrus nodded to her. The three of them went out first into the clearing. Seventeen LOKI mechs swivelled, but the IFF signal worked (for once!) and their eye lenses remained white. "Lt Vakarian" and his "underlings" passed through the yard and disappeared through the large entrance.

Shepard gave them five minutes, then jogged across with Jack at her shoulder. Again the unnerving stare of the LOKI mechs followed them across, but nothing exploded. The mech closest to the door murmured, 'Have a pleasant day,' as they fiddled with the access panel for the entrance.

Inside, Shepard closed the door and sought her bearings. EDI's voice came quietly through her helmet. 'Shepard, from your pitiful suit's readings I've located three potential terminals for the hack. Updating your scanner.'

They began a casual saunter through the mercenary hive. Mercs passed them in the corridor without looking too closely at them. Shepard was almost aware of every separate red blood cell pulsing through her body. The drones were easy. The huge problems would start if they ran into higher ranking workers. She mentally crossed her fingers.

Astonishingly the first terminal presented itself without incident, in an empty module no less. Crates and benches were scattered about the room, and she guessed it was some sort of down-time hub. The terminal, when she activated it, hadn't been shut down properly by the previous user, and a gambling game was in progress. Jack shoved her. 'Hey it's batarian quasar, I know this one, gimme a second...'

Shepard let her push in front and work the terminal. Presently it blooped and lights flashed green, and Jack punched the air. She inserted her credit chip and gloated. 'Boom! Come to momma...'

'Good for you. Now wait at the door and stop anyone from coming in.'

Miranda had provided her omni-tool with a program designed to search for the relevant data, and she transmitted it across and ran it from the terminal. She kept relaxed and focused on the holo screen, watching the little progress bar edge its way across, even as Jack encountered their first test.

'Can't go in here. Captain's discovered a virus on the terminal. Tricky bastard. Needs silence to disable the damn thing.'

'Aw man,' bemoaned the merc. 'I was just getting into a nice run on quasar...'

'Man I fucking love that game. You ever play on Omega?'

'Yeah, was on a job over there a while back. There's this place called Coal that's real nice for that kind of thing. Nice little bar, private terminals. You ever been?'

'Oh yeah. I prefer things a little more lively though.'

'You should check out Coal. They have the best asari dancers that side of the damn rock.'

'I'll bear it in mind. Don't worry, she'll be finished in a few minutes.'

'All right. Guess I'll drop by later.'

98%... 99%... complete. No result. Shepard resisted the urge to punch the terminal and withdrew the program. 'Gotchya. All right, this thing's clear. Had to restart it through. Sorry you lost your game.'

'Annh I wasn't sure I could win it anyway. See you around, captain...?'

'Arashu,' said Shepard instinctively, and a chill went shivering down her spine. 'Not a problem. Carry on.' She left the merc to his gambling and turned left out of the module.

'So? How was that?' whispered Jack on their encrypted channel.

'Good work. Nothing on the terminal though. We need to find a networked one. The CIC's our best bet. You'll need a better excuse than a virus though.'

'Better than an excuse, we need a fucking diversion.'

'Jack...'

'What's the fire containment system like here? ...Looks like carbon dioxide vents in the ceilings. If we can lock down the CIC that should give you plenty of time, and access to everything.'

'Jack, I thought I made it clear this was a low risk mission.'

'Low risk, low reward, _captain_,' sneered the biotic. 'You want results, fuck, you gotta go in all guns blazing.'

'What's your plan?'

Jack scanned the ceiling. 'We need to cause panic. Smoke 'em out. Block up one of the CO2 pipes. Then light a small fire. System goes off. Pressure builds and the vent explodes somewhere in the ceiling. Beautiful chaos reigns.'

'One problem. How do we get out?'

'Probably with violence. Another day in the life.'

'If I wasn't so concerned about the life support in these suits, and for the other three over in the other side of the damn compound, I'd consider it more carefully. Not this time Jack. Stay with me.'

The biotic snarled and punched the wall, which warped and buckled beneath her fist. She trailed sullenly along after that. Shepard's hands were starting to become damp with sweat inside her gloves. She flexed her fingers and headed to the right down a long hall.

By the time they reached the information centre, she had a rough plan of her own. She stormed in, registering that Jack had lingered near the door. 'My lieutenant just brought in a stabiliser for a tiny drive core,' she proclaimed. 'I need a networked terminal to run the serial number. Fast. I think the rest of the damn thing might still be in orbit.'

For mercenaries, they were surprisingly disciplined. A batarian just in front of her ceded his screen and stood back. 'Captain.'

The info centre was comprised of four hexagon-shaped storage modules with the sides knocked out, creating a scattered honeycomb of terminals and cables. Shepard pushed forward and activated her omni-tool again, discharging the program and hoping against hope that the terminals weren't remotely monitored.

'Is that beat-up turian in the garage your lieutenant, captain?'

Shepard looked up with with a cockiness she did not feel. 'Who wants to know?'

The human male opposite her was cradling an assault rifle. 'I'm captain Aziz, scout team. I was wondering if I could persuade you to transfer him to my squad for my next recon actually.'

'No can do, captain. I'm afraid that turian still owes me for ship damage after a brawl. We arranged it so part of the debt includes scrap service. Birdbrain hates it, but he has a damn good nose for good stuff. Why'd he attract your attention?'

'I was talking to him in the garage earlier. Seems he survived on Omega when the Primary Colours attempted to take out Archangel. I could use a shooter like him.'

Shepard lowered her head back to the terminal, cautious of the fact that even if she had bitten her tongue, her eyes might still betray her amusement.'

'Ah yeah, that. That was the origin of the brawl actually. Boasting as usual. Couple of my men decided to ah, test his reflexes.'

'I'd seriously like to know more about him,' pursued Aziz. 'You're just passing through the system right? What did you say your name was?'

'Arashu.'

He activated his omni-tool. 'Here's my contact. Seriously. Let me know when he's worked off his debt.' His eyes narrowed. 'Woah. That's weird. My 'tool is reading yours as "Commander Shepard".'

_Shit_.

Shepard made a noise of irritation and hit her long-suffering omni-tool. 'Ugh, damn thing. Yeah. Ran into her once. Wasn't pleasant. I escaped to tell the tale but she fried my omni-tool. I got it repaired by a volus on the Citadel but the bitch had hacked it somehow so the ID tag reads as hers. Volus couldn't do anything about it.' She laughed bitterly. 'Spectres are all the same, y'know. It's not enough to be the top operative in the galaxy, they have to go carving their name on everyone they meet too.'

'I hear you,' agreed Aziz, and to her relief he deactivated his omni-tool. For a second she had been worried it would register her thundering heartbeat. 'What a bitch. You should talk to a quarian if you can find one.'

The terminal bipped happily, and Shepard withdrew the program and its haul before Aziz could crane his head over to see. 'Gotchya. Okay this thing's still in orbit. I'm gonna collect my lieutenant and take a team up there to check it out. I'll be in touch Aziz.'

'Good hunting.'

She turned around to discover Jack leaning nonchalantly on the wall, with one hand on the fire alarm. 'Don't. You. Dare,' she intoned privately. 'I got the data. Let's get out of here.'

Through the battered Blue Suns helmet, Shepard saw her raise her eyebrows. She shrugged and pushed off the wall, casually putting all her weight on the button.

Three different alarm sirens went off at once, and the hive went berserk.


	12. Sting

While Shepard had been fending off the scout captain, Jack had apparently decided to carry through with her plan anyway. Shepard was furious, so angry that before she realised what she'd done she had punched a sparking hole through the terminal base.

'Garrus, Miranda, Jacob, anybody read me?'

Static, and silence. There were no words for the depth of her fury. As on Rakhana, it felt like something was unfolding inside her and stretching, hot and powerful and full of rage. How dare Jack endanger all their lives by deviating from the plan, and at a point where it was redundant anyway? If she couldn't control herself when under orders, maybe she should jump ship.

Shepard forced herself to prioritise, standing still and almost glowing with anger in the chaos. It appeared the mercenaries had no concrete plan in case of fire, which would work to their advantage. This didn't figure in the scenarios they had planned for, so with any luck the other team would still head for the shuttle as planned. She switched into the most active comm channel and was almost deafened by shouts and conflicting orders. No one seemed to be able to pinpoint the fire.

The blocked CO2 pipe in the long hallway chose this moment to explode, and instantly the hexagonal rooms were gassed. Everything vanished in a vicious hissing of thick, pale smoke. Shepard coughed before realising she had to manually switch to life support in this ancient suit, and even then the gauge showed a mere thirty minutes of oxygen. She dropped and followed the join between two modules in a crouch. Jack had vanished, probably to kill someone. Shepard found herself hoping it would not be her.

She joined a stream of mercs jogging out down another corridor, where the smoke was just beginning to creep down the panelling. Every instinct in her body was screaming at her to arm herself. Someone went past with a cryo extinguisher, and Shepard snatched it from his or her hands and took off running. A few people assumed she knew where the source of the fire was and followed her.

'EDI, get me to the garage.'

'Transmitting... Also, Shepard, I've detected a fire in engineering, dangerously close to fuel cells. Recommend evacuation within ten minutes.'

Shepard swore in as many languages as she could think of.

Jack... Jack was on her own now.

The others were probably in the vicinity of the garage, judging by Aziz's conversation. She stormed through the facility, trailing mercs and ploughing through clouds of CO2, and finally burst out into a hangar. Smoke was beginning to pour down from the vents in the ceiling. She turned and tossed the extinguisher to the mercenary behind her. 'Get to engineering. Go go go!'

'Why?' asked one.

'You get your ass down there and put out the damn fire, or we'll all go up in flames.'

'Oh it's in engineering... But why did you run all the way up–—'

'Move it!' roared Shepard, and the mercenaries fled.

'Captain!'

She almost cried out in relief at hearing the familiar two-toned voice over the private channel. 'We're leaving. I got what we came for.'

'Where's Jack?' asked Jacob.

'Let's go.'

She wheeled and plunged into the smoke again, when her fears were realised: gunfire crackled in the opaque gloom, and bullets skittered off the ground and off her pathetic shielding. 'Shit! Back up back up back up, cover's blown, get to a jeep!'

The four stormed across the asphalt and scrambled up into the first land vehicle they came to: a rover-style jeep with enclosed cockpit and an open back with reinforced bars at the side and over the top. Only now did Shepard permit herself to draw her pistol. 'Miranda, get us the hell out of here! Does this thing have shields?'

'Barely.' Miranda fiddled for what seemed like hours to hotwire the jeep, and yanked it into reverse. It leapt backwards and then stalled. Garrus grunted with a clang as he bounced off a bar, but still managed to squeeze off a burst of bullets and take down an advancing merc. In the smoke, little red circles of light began to appear.

'They've over-ridden the IFF on the mechs,' remarked Jacob. 'Here they come...'

By way of answer, Shepard knelt, braced herself and found a centrally positioned red light. She sighted and shot it with a disrupter bullet, and the LOKI mech overloaded and self-destructed, taking down five more around it. The jeep bounced as Miranda regained control and gunned the throttle, sending them shooting out over the hangar and towards the huge open doors. Open doors that were getting steadily narrower... The shutter was dropping.

'Get down!'

The jeep screamed through the opening, not quite clearing the descending wall of steel; the top of the cockpit gained a horrendous gash down the centre, and the top bracing bar was torn clean off and went skipping off down the path behind them.

'What about Jack?' demanded Miranda.

'She made this mess, she can clean it up,' replied Shepard tightly, ejecting her heat sink. 'But unless those idiots put out the fire in engineering, the base will be kinda hard to clean in five minutes time, on account of being in a million little pieces. And why the _hell_ were your comms down?'

'We disabled them,' explained Jacob numbly. 'It seemed safer with so many electronics around.'

Shepard pulled off her battered Blue Suns helmet and launched it off the back of the jeep with a bark of anger. It bounded along the path and took out a FENRIR mech that had been closing in on them. The rank, hot air from the planet's surface buffeted her face. Two more dog-like mechs rounded the corner and pounded down the path. Jacob riddled one with incendiary bullets, and Garrus shot the other in the face with his rifle.

Holding to the back of the cockpit, Shepard stood braced as the jeep sped onward. There was no time to go back. Now her anger was cooling, solidifying to a hard rock in her chest, she was hoping Jack did survive the inevitable explosion, purely so she could kill her later for endangering all their lives. This would bring up a lot of discussion about Subject Zero. Shepard's previous reasoning for allowing Jack to stay on board was that it was safer for the galaxy if she did. It would be less dangerous for the crew if she left, but it would be like releasing a savage beast. There had been an improvement in the biotic, but she still only ever answered to Shepard. Now it seemed even that was too much of an effort.

Shepard discovered everyone but Miranda was staring back through the piles of junk, and even their driver was checking the rear-view mirror more than usual. The jeep rounded a corner and bounced down a slope, and after a few more turns they came into the clearing with the shuttle. The team leapt out and ran for the open door.

The jeep engine died. There was a heartbeat of pure silence. Then the shockwave hit. Through her visor everything shifted blurrily up and then down again, and all of them lost their footing and went tumbling to the ground. The sound followed as they fell, a colossal _whoaammph_ noise heard even through helmets. The piles of junk and scrap groaned ominously, their complex network of weight dislodged and shifted by the impact. Shepard gritted her teeth and pushed herself upright. The left side of neck felt like it was on fire. A tower of thick black smoke was climbing into the smog from the direction of the base, and a million little pieces were falling from it in trails of flames.

'Commander...' Jacob was on his feet but stationary, frozen with disbelief. Behind the shuttle, something metallic began to moan as its centre of gravity shifted. Steel on plastic squeaked and grated.

'All aboard. Come on chief. Get in there.'

The precarious piles of scrap around them began to collapse, and nothing but the shuttle's kinetic shielding protected them from being folded into the chaos. Rising through the thick smog and toppling metal, the viewports showed all the junk in a three-klick radius had suffered the same fate, and the network of paths was destroyed, wiped out by the blasting hands of the explosion.

Only once the shuttle had blasted them off the surface and was climbing through the atmosphere towards the Normandy did Shepard crumple, and put her head in her hands. 'Damnit...'

* * *

The squad had enough sense left to let her alone for the duration of the shuttle ride. It felt like the only thing keeping her head from coming apart was the clamping pressure of her hands, slick with sweat. When they docked with the Normandy she remained still; only the touch of Garrus on her shoulder roused her. Still in mercenary armour she followed him out of the shuttle and forced herself to focus. 'Joker, call Thane and Tali down here.'

'They're already on their way, commander.' Even the pilot sounded sober for once.

Shepard pulled herself up on top of a module and sat with her feet braced on the rim, absently massaging her neck. The molten anger had solidified, and she was beginning to feel the weight of it and her subsequent decisions. Her shoulders and the centre of her upper back ached oddly, as though stretched. Probably from the insane jeep ride.

The elevator arrived and discharged its occupants with a clanging of boots. She guessed the drell and the quarian had both been attempting to follow the mission's progress from the comm room. Thane almost came straight forward to her side but stopped himself at the edge of the circle which had formed around her. His hands were rolled into fists. Tali's face was unreadable through her visor but all her lithe body language communicated distress, as did her voice. 'Shepard, I'm so glad you're okay. But what happened down there?'

Staring at the floor in the centre of the little circle, Shepard activated her omni-tool and played back the log from the encrypted channel.

_'Better than an excuse, we need a fucking diversion.'_

_'Jack...'_

_'What's the fire containment system like here? ...Looks like carbon dioxide vents in the ceilings. If we can lock down the CIC that should give you plenty of time, and access to everything.'_

_'Jack, I thought I made it clear this was a low risk mission.'_

_'Low risk, low reward, _captain_. You want results, fuck, you gotta go in all guns blazing.'_

_'What's your plan?'_

_'We need to cause panic. Smoke 'em out. Block up one of the CO__2__ pipes. Then light a small fire. System goes off. Pressure builds and the vent explodes somewhere in the ceiling. Beautiful chaos reigns.'_

_'One problem. How do we get out?'_

_'Probably with violence. Another day in the life.'_

_'If I wasn't so concerned about the life support in these suits, and for the other three over in the other side of the damn compound, I'd consider it more carefully. Not this time Jack. Stay with me.'_

_'Rrrrgh!'_

She shut down the tool and looked up. Through the pounding haze of her headache she could see that those with her on Korlus had realised what had happened. She explained anyway.

'Jack subsequently implemented her plan, after being specifically instructed not to. She caused a blockage in the CO2 supply in the main corridor and managed to remotely overload a conduit to start a fire in Engineering, then she manually activated the alarm directly after I had ordered her not to. Meanwhile I assume someone had been monitoring my access to the terminal in the info hub and had worked out we were intruders. The station vented, and the pipeline exploded. It was chaos. The fire happened to be in proximity to fuel cells. We took a jeep and fought our way out and then the whole complex exploded.'

'And Jack..?' asked Thane gently.

'I don't know. I lost her in the smoke.' Which was true enough, but not the whole truth.

'If she didn't exhaust herself she's easily powerful enough to have survived the blast,' Jacob reasoned. 'When do you plan to return for her, commander?'

Shepard put her head in her hands again, 'I don't.'

'What?!'

'Not at the present time. She defied my orders on two occasions, and her actions endangered not only my life, but all your lives as well. We don't need that kind of recklessness on a delicate mission like this.'

'But Shepard, if we don't contain her, the entire galaxy will suffer from her eh... well, from her.'

'Finally, she'll have to take responsibility for herself,' countered Miranda, with a withering look at the quarian. 'Shepard can't hold her hand forever, Tali. If she ends up in cryogenic containment on another prison ship, at least the galaxy is a little safer.'

Jacob's voice had risen. 'Miranda, Jack was with us all the way through the Omega 4 relay. Her biotics are the only reason we got past those Swarms. She's a hell of a lot more predictable than she was. We can't just abandon her.'

'Think about what you're saying, Taylor. She almost got us all killed down there _because _she is still unpredictable. It looks like the commander's grip on her reins isn't as strong as it used to be.'

Tali flared up. 'This has nothing to do with Shepard!'

'I've said it for god knows how long now, Subject Zero's a danger to the crew the ship and herself and should be let go. Here is a perfect opportunity.' Miranda folded her arms and threw out her hip.

Jacob rose to the challenge. 'Jack was never on "reins" as you put it, Miranda. She stayed because she wanted to stay with Shepard. She respects her.'

'And by defying Shepard she's forfeited her right to that luxury.'

'Do you seriously think abandoning her on that garbage dump of a planet is going to affect her for the better? The woman has enough issues already. This could potentially turn her against us.'

'And since when did you look through her psychological files, Taylor? I didn't know you were so interested.'

'Stop it.' Shepard's voice was quiet, but the weight of it stopped the two humans short. 'I said, "Not yet". We'll come back for her once we've dealt with Nerar Natai. I won't abandon a team member, but she needs to know what she did was unacceptable. I'll beam a transmission down to the planet telling her that.'

'Commander, even a trained varren doesn't necessarily remember who its master is.'

'That's _enough_, Ms Lawson. If you're unhappy with my decision, please remember that no one on board this ship is under contract to stay.'

That brought an uneasy silence, which lasted for thirty seconds until it was broken by the cold, sharp sounds of Miranda's receding footsteps.

Garrus groaned. 'Not again...'

'Anyone else?' The silence returned and seemed to wrap around her head, muffling her ears. She could hear her pulse deep in her body. She forced a smile. 'Otherwise, the mission was a success.'

The remaining four members of the team looked at one another, decided that even if Shepard had retrieved the data, the mission had been far from a success...


	13. Colours

_I should be crying but I just can't let it show  
__I should be hoping but I can't stop thinking..._

_(Kate Bush, "This Woman's Work")_

* * *

'Jack, it's Shepard. I hope you're alive. We can't come back for you right now. What you did in the station was reckless and dangerous and almost got us all killed, and I can't have that. But I will not abandon you. If you still want to be part of this crew we'll come get you after we've been to Relic and sorted out this mess. Shepard out.'

Everything hurt. Her neck, her back, her shoulders, her hands, her feet, her head... Feeling as though she were already underwater, she went back up to the loft from the comm room, locked the door, and mechanically stripped. In the bathroom she positioned herself under the showerhead and lost herself in the steam, washing off the heat and steely grime of Korlus. She lost track of how long she stood there, retreating further and further into the dead zone within herself where she could function without feeling. She was dimly aware that this was not an intelligent move.

Her fingers were puckered and wrinkled by the time she tired of the drumming water, and turned off the shower. The steam had obscured the long mirror, apart from one odd-shaped patch near the sink. On closer inspection it turned out to be a large lean handprint, the middle two fingers fused together. Shepard fitted her own dark hand over the top, then flinched away at the memory of his coughing fit.

She left the bathroom clad in a light robe and flopped face-down onto the bed, splaying out her limbs. The aches in her back had eased a little with the hot water but still twinged when she shifted. She pushed herself up with a hiss of pain, and fumbled on the nightstand for the painkillers from Dr Chakwas. She swallowed two and lay down again, this time on her back.

Where did she even begin to untangle the gnarled and spiny mess of her thoughts?

She swung off the bed and headed for her personal terminal, and patched herself through to Life Support. 'Thane?'

There was a pause, presumably while he stood effortlessly from the table, then his voice answered. 'Siha.'

'Do you want to come up?'

'I have been waiting for your call. I'm on my way.'

Gentle and compassionate and smooth... Shepard went back to the nightstand and shook out two anti-hallucinogens from the little bottle. She held them cupped in her hand for a moment, then dropped them back. Tonight she might be glad of the distraction, for once. Why was the damn elevator always so slow? She paced around the other side of the bed, past the fish and her armour locker, and back up alongside the tank and up the step.

The door opened at his touch and he almost walked right into her. He was here, now, with her. The best thing she had seen all day.

'Don't leave me.'

He twitched a smile. 'I just arrived.'

She didn't have the heart to tell him what she really meant. The request had bypassed her brain in any case. The handprint on the mirror had stamped itself on the inside of her chest and was burning through her skin. She watched numbly as her own hands reached out and pushed his coat off his shoulders, peeling the sleeves off and tenderly disentangling the glove-like part that served as hand wraps. Beneath this he wore a sort of waistcoat, the clasps of which also fell to her fingers. His arms bore a long ridge running all the way up the outside, with a short black spike at the elbow, and everywhere the sleek greenish scales rippled.

His turn: his hands went to her shoulders and absorbed the texture of the robe. He let out a breath in a long hissing sound, reaching up with his fingers and touching the backs of them against her cheeks. He held his hands either side of her face for a moment, framing her, then they glided down her neck and shoulders and under the edge of the robe. A quick, suspiciously expert flick, and now the robe was hanging uselessly from the belt, and the halogen light from above and the blue light from the fishtank were mingling on her dark skin.

'You've done this before,' she teased, feeling some of her old self gleam through the clouds.

His frills expanded a little. He went down on one knee, a position she equated so strongly with an unfortunate hostile being sniped in the head that her trigger finger twitched. A little tug on the knot of the belt and that fell away too, and now the light played off all of her. She stepped out of the robe and flicked it to one side with her foot, then left him briefly to switch off the terminal, deadlock the door, and dim the lights.

* * *

'What colour is your hair? Is it black or dark red?'

'Black.'

In the darkness his smooth hands slipped like silk down her shoulders and beneath her arms.

'And here?'

'Ahha. Black again.'

His lips brushed her left cheek; his fringe tickled her ear. His hands slid lower and lower and round the front.

'… And... here?'

'… hhhhhngh...'

* * *

They lay curled together. In the dark, Shepard could make out his hands beneath hers on her stomach. The heavy strength of his arm led up past her back and joined a shoulder behind her own. The other rested horizontally across her stomach. She could feel the knot in her head bumping to the front of her mind. Sweet and sated and so sleep-heavy... She must have tensed, for he shifted and grasped her tighter. 'Your wings are twitching, my siha. What is it you need to talk about?'

When she closed her eyes, the spots of colour behind her eyelids vibrated and pulsed with unusual intensity. When she opened them again, some spots remained and wandered over the darkened room. She twisted her head to follow them and watched them glide over the ceiling. 'Ghosts,' she said distantly. 'And being stabbed in the back, and giant worms coming out of the ground, and a thousand burning mercenaries, and varren blood, and sunsets beaming through the desert dust, and Gilbert and Sullivan, and an army of intelligence in one robotic body, and the biggest test tube I've ever seen, and explosions and dust and metal, and...'

He cut her off by squeezing her sharply, so the remaining air went out of her lungs with a 'Hhp!' sound.

'Does the sunset always do that on Rakhana?' she asked when she'd recovered.

'I... do not know; I... was only there once before.'

She let that fade away. He had his lips in her hair again, inhaling nothing but her scent. She could feel the hot breath as it hissed on its way out of his lungs and rolled away through her hair and down her head. Her hands splayed and rubbed his. 'It was your hands I noticed first. The way you held them in a ball to pray. Like you'd caught something. I caught myself wishing I had someone to pray to, down on Korlus today.'

'That is understandable.'

'It seemed like such a funny idea. Then we got down there and... it wasn't fun. At all. We were doing so well and then Jack...'

She fell silent and watched the wall. Then she brought her hands up in front of her face and looked intently at them. She was wearing nothing: no omni-tool, no comm unit, no webbing, no wetsuit... Her own skin seemed bare and strange. The funny little spots were accumulating on her palms.

'We grasp with more than just our hands,' she said simply, with the feeling of stating a great truth. She wriggled and turned and sat up propped on her right elbow, looking down at him. He blinked both ways at her, and she couldn't help but lean in. The spots were flocking to his dark eyes and dancing in the blackness. She put her hand out and touched the skin beneath his left eye, and the little spots were joined by wiggles, which all boiled out of his eye and caroused all along her arm. At this point the part of her mind that was still rational finally broke through the haze with its objection. '...Rrrright. This is getting weird.'

'What?'

She turned and sat up straighter, fumbled on the nightstand, and swallowed three of the pills from Mordin. Strange dots and spots pulsed when she moved. 'It's okay. I'm just high. On you.' She slid down again and found a comfortable position for her head where his arm met his shoulder. He, still fascinated by her mammalian body, went exploring with his free hand. She clasped her hands as she'd seen him do countless times, waited until the hallucinatory lights poured into the gap between her thumbs, then released them in a cascade of private confetti.

A wave of goosebumps spread over her back and stomach as, with her head next to his chest, she heard a catch in his breathing, and he forced the air into his lungs with a tight, strained sound.

'I remember when we first met you on Illium the rising sun was beaming across the window and making me squint and then when you came across to talk to me you ran your hand over the console, and when we were face to face I saw the dawn in your eyes.'

He drew another sharp breath, this time in surprise. 'That's... an interesting coincidence. I remember thinking the same thing... _Morning sun reflects in her eyes as we shake hands. Strange that one who pushed me into life again should also carry the sun in her eyes. Strange that I should only meet her now, when my own sunlight is fading. Strange._'

'You're still strong, Thane.' The colours were fading in intensity and the warm darkness was returning.

'Not as strong as you,' he murmured, and pulled her close. 'You're brave, and fast, and sharp, and tenacious. You understand everyone; see the strengths in everyone. You see the good and the bad, and you choose the greater good. When you charge down someone who means you harm, in the glow of your biotics I can see your wings...'

His voice gave out. The recall, when it came, was barely audible. '_Watching her leave the table leaves a raw hole in the dry air. Now I have named her for what she is will she still be there when I wake? Not vanished?_'

'I am here, now,' she repeated, 'with you.'

That moved him much more than she'd expected, and they did not surface from the kiss for some minutes. His tears slipped down and collected where their mouths were joined.

She didn't dare sleep. Apart from the threat of nightmares, if she stayed awake she could make sure every breath got through. She could listen to him measuring out his remaining time in air molecules. She could hold his hand tight in hers and watch the sunset without blinking.


	14. Edge

_ It's love and life I fight for..._  
_(Audra Mae, "Bandida")_

* * *

He awoke towards the end of the night cycle. Shepard had replaced her omni-tool on her wrist and was playing klondike. He shifted to watched her. She'd had a good run with this game, and presently she was gesturing the last few kings onto the Ace piles. The game flashed a fanfare (she'd muted the volume), and projected the cards all over the room in celebration. Fortunately the effects of his skin had been subdued by the pills she'd swallowed, so cards were the only thing that flickered over the dark walls. The painkillers, on the other hand, were wearing off again, and her body was beginning to protest.

'Siha... did you sleep at all this night?'

She sighed and deactivated the 'tool, taking off the wrist cuff and tossing it carelessly down the bed. 'I couldn't.' She eased down beneath the sheet and he welcomed her into his arms.

'Tell me.'

'I can't. It's like a... like... like snow, or... or sand. Once a few little grains start rolling, it's only a matter of time before the entire pile comes crashing down. I can't deal with that now. I have to stay cold, have to keep it contained until we get this finished.'

'It pains me to see you suffer and be unable to help.'

She glanced into his eyes, darkly amused. 'Speak for yourself.'

'Hhm,' he said, in the closest she had ever heard him get to laughter, and tightened his grip.

She thought aloud for his benefit. 'I have to talk to Miranda first. Then see what EDI made of the data we pulled from the base. Then plot a course for First Land.'

'I have been thinking. I believe it would be more efficient for me to spring the trap alone.'

She pulled out of the closeness and stared at him. 'You'd better have a damn convincing argument before I'll even consider letting you do that, Krios.'

'I am the target,' he said simply. 'If we co-ordinate correctly, you and another should be able to flank her while I present myself, as though I had single-handedly followed the trail.' He cracked a rare smile. 'As Garrus discovered, out-thinking someone in a game like this involves no small amount of recursive reasoning, but it's safe to assume Natai will expect me to be prepared. However, I have always worked alone.'

'So she won't expect you to have shared your burden.'

'I doubt it very much.'

'Okay...'

'There is one thing I did not mention earlier... Nerar Natai's combat style is close. She favours blades over bullets. If I am to fight her, I will need something sharper than a gun.'

Shepard flopped back. 'If only Mordin was still here...'

'I suspect Jacob may be able to help. I was thinking of hiding a blade in an old rifle.'

'Like a bayonet?'

He frowned, the word having no equivalent in his language. Wincing as her back and neck protested, Shepard crawled down to retrieve her omni-tool, and quickly found an image.

'No, not a short one, a long one, disguised in the barrel. The gun would be useless to fire, but somewhat more helpful in close quarters.'

'We should rig up a section of the hold as a combat zone. I assume you were as well trained with blades as with guns, but it wouldn't hurt to practise.'

'With whom?'

'Me. N7 training was ah... thorough. In that case we should probably raid the armoury ASAP. Can I leave that with you while I talk to Miranda?'

'Of course. Siha, I... about what I said earlier, that we could out-number Natai. Upon reflection I do not believe this is the best way. I should be the one to engage her, but alone.'

Shepard opened her mouth to make a joke about his pride, but stopped herself. 'We're still coming with you. If anything at all goes wrong I'll be there. Possibly with a blade of my own. Or I might just, you know, shoot her in the kneecaps.'

'… A tenacious protector... Thank you, my siha.'

'You know, I accidentally gave my name as Arashu down on Korlus.'

'There are no accidents around you.'

* * *

'Shepard.'

'Miranda.' She hesitated behind her XO's desk, then sat down opposite. The office didn't hold the same atmosphere as the last time she'd had to have this kind of conversation. 'Do you have a minute?'

'Sure.' The human swivelled her holo-screen away and faced Shepard, lacing her pale fingers. Her features were expressionless.

Choices, choices... she could be brutally rude, or attempt to broach the subject carefully... or leave it to Miranda. That would be safer at first but risked putting her on the back foot later. 'I notice you haven't requested to be dropped off anywhere.'

'No. I rose above it.'

'Every person aboard this ship is important to me, Miranda. I know we have our differences and sometimes... well, usually, we don't see eye to eye. But I value you highly as part of my crew. And I also value Jack's skills. I'm very glad we don't have to repeat ourselves.'

'Same, commander. I... I, however, do feel obliged to stay. Cerberus put this ship into your hands and I need to keep an eye on it.'

'And on me?'

'I didn't say that. The Illusive Man decided to bring you back exactly as you were, but better. I have no jurisdiction there. The ship, however... is valuable.'

'You do remember that conversation I had with the Illusive Man after we got back through the relay, right?'

Miranda stood up and paced to and fro, running her hand along the top of the desk. 'Of course I do. You're the only person who's had the guts or the stupidity to face down the Illusive Man. And one day it will catch up with you. But not yet.'

'Wait, are you... keeping him off us?'

'Don't be stupid, Shepard. We need Cerberus resources to function. Even if I went through the Shadow Broker there's no way I could hide us from them and still keep us running.'

'But you've managed to placate him,' pressed Shepard.

Miranda stopped and wrung her perfect hands. 'For the moment, yes. I send him detailed reports of anything we come across so Cerberus can profit from it by sending in an agent, or brokering a deal, or...'

'Or taking care of some business on Korlus?' guessed Shepard, folding her arms and staring Miranda down. The anger began to shine coldly through her voice. 'That was why you suggested we go down there. That was why you were so eager to come along. And that was why you were so angry with Jack... Am I wrong?'

'Christ, Shepard. When we rebuilt you did that idiot Wilson give you X-ray vision too?'

'Tell me what Cerberus are after on that station.'

'Just a data cache of the Blue Suns hierarchy movement, that's all. Since we somewhat dramatically reduced their numbers over the course of the last few months, they're reorganising their command system. We need to stay on top of that. The turian was amusing himself with talking to the mercs and Jacob was poking around the garage. I slipped away and found a terminal easily in engineering. But just as I was extracting the data—'

'The alarm went off and you realised Jack had spoiled it for you?'

'The conduit she overloaded was right next to me, Shepard. I could have been electrocuted.'

There was a pause while Shepard digested this. 'Well. It's kind of obvious why you didn't mention this earlier. And this brings up all sorts of trouble. The Normandy may be my ship, but she's not _mine_. Some day soon I'm going to have to let go of her... But not right now. Can I count on you for this mission?'

'Yes of course, commander. Just... understand that the Illusive Man will know about it.'

'I've gotten used to him seeing everything we do... I wonder if those eyes of his aren't hooked up to EDI somehow. Anyway.' She stood. 'Thanks for being honest with me.'

'Perhaps I should have been more upfront.'

Shepard stopped at the door and turned. 'Ah, yes, this might interest you. Thane wants to get Jacob to help him transform a rifle into some sort of swordstick..?'

Miranda's head came forwards in an expression of incredulous surprise. 'A _what_?'

'I wondered if your skills might come in handy there.'

'I'd certainly like to see the thing.'

'They're over in the armoury now. The other thing is that we're arranging a mêlée ring in the hangar, if you feel the urge to spar with someone.'

'Interesting. I assume you'll explain all this when you are ready.' There it was again, the faintly sardonic yet outwardly respectful speech she'd come to associate with her XO.

'I will. But we're still a ways out from the system. We have time yet.'

'Right. Take care, Shepard.'

Shepard left more disturbed than when she had entered. Despite thanking Miranda for her honesty, she didn't believe that crap about the Blue Suns hierarchy. That would be child's play for Cerberus to figure out; there was no need to send an Operative into an mercenary base to get that information. It must be something else they were after. She would have to investigate that later.

She was going to need a power nap before they went down to First Land. A sleepless night of worry, hallucinations and klondike was not a good thing on which to be attempting to outwit an assassin. Her eyes had hollowed; two gentle curves had appeared beneath, arcing from the tear duct across her cheekbone.

She checked her terminal reflexively as she passed, unable to prevent herself from glancing over at the empty yeoman's position. Another thread of woe formed inside the already frothing mental mess of Things She Was Avoiding. She was hoping to work some of it off while reawakening her hand-to-hand skills. The rest of the stress would probably all come exploding out after the mission was over. She could feel herself teetering, balanced precariously between the brutal spiral down into the stormy chaos, and an ever-decreasing platform of emotional stability. With an effort she mentally backed herself up. _No. Not now. Not now._

She drew a deep breath and visualised the boiling tangle of thoughts, and mentally encircled it all in a sheet of ice. Cold as a Martian ice cap. That would do for now. Gently, she moved the frozen ball to the back of her mind, leaving her conscience temporarily clear. Right now, she had to see how the sword-rifle was getting on, and check out the armoury's blades. Then train. Then eat. Then sleep. Then prepare for battle.

Once she had laid out the immediate future in comforting blocks of tasks to be accomplished, she began to relax a little. The painkillers helped, keeping the worst of her neck and back pain away. She closed her terminal and went into the armoury.

The human and the drell had their heads together over a workbench covered with bits of gun; both looked a little strange with their sleeves rolled up. Shepard approached, genuinely curious. 'How's it going, gentlemen?'

'Shepard, you gotta see this...' Jacob looked up first and cracked a smile at her. His face was flecked with oil. Thane straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. The human held out the gun: an old, purplish Python rifle.

'Jeez,' commented Shepard. 'What cemetery did you dig that one up?'

Jacob presented the tip to Thane, who grasped the muzzle and pulled. The whole of the barrel folded down and back, and incredibly the assassin was now armed with a solid, curving blade of dark steel. He turned it this way and that, and the reflections flickered and span over the walls and floor. 'The balance is still a little off... It needs more weight in the grip to compensate for the hollow muzzle.'

He turned and laid the sword down on the table, and pulled the soldering kit forwards. Jacob handed Shepard the rifle when she gestured, and she examined their handiwork while Thane dismantled the grip and guard from the blade and made the adjustments. 'I see... You were right, Thane, this does make the gun entirely useless. Not to mention it looks old and out of date. Cleverly done though.'

'It took a bit of work to make the curve fit,' said Jacob. 'But we figured if we took out the whole of the mechanism and widened this section here, it would slot in nicely.'

'And turn the gun's aesthetics into support for the extra weight, I see.'

'Mm, we had to reinforce those too.'

'So... where did the sword come from?'

'That one belongs to Thane, believe it or not. But I asked EDI and she opened up a whole new storage unit I thought was empty, and it turns out we actually have quite a kit cupboard here. Short swords, daggers, couple of axes, sai, knuckledusters... I think I even saw some ninja stars.'

'Shuriken,' supplied Shepard. 'And that's quite a catalogue. It's been ages since I used sai.'

'I have no idea why the ship contains so many melee weapons,' admitted Jacob, 'but I'm not complaining.'

'I believe it may have something to do with emergency protocol in the event of system failure,' put in Thane, as the acrid smell of melting solder rose into the air. 'Nevertheless I concur, it is unusual to find an armoury so well stocked. One wonders what the Illusive Man was thinking,' he added lightly. Pieces of metal clinked together as he reassembled the sword, sliding the leather-wrapped guard onto the tang and fixing the muzzle of the rifle back onto the end. 'Hmn. It looks ridiculous, but it should be serviceable.'

'I didn't know you owned a sword.'

'It... was a present. From my old hanar masters, when I was released to marry Irikah.'

'Wait, a _hanar_ gave you a sword as a wedding present?' repeated Jacob, incredulous.

'It had done a lot of work to procure it,' explained Thane placidly. 'The design is drell, and the hanar had sent an envoy to another colony to find someone capable of smithing such a blade. Since the exodus we have become nostalgic for simpler things; artefacts and items that have no purpose in our new existence but which remind of us of where we came from, of what the hanar did for us. A drell sword symbolises many things: power, grace, protection, strength...'

'It's a beautiful piece of work.' Shepard had had time to examine it while he was talking, and had just noticed the tight wave-like pattern on the surface of the blade.

He hefted it again. 'I would be glad of some practise. The forms and patterns of the art I could never forget, but my body would be no worse for some physical reminders.'

'Sure.' A warm wave of excitement took her by surprise. 'Jacob, show me to this cupboard of wonders. Let's see how much of my extra-curricular combat training I remember.'

'Hey, commander?' Joker's voice chirped out of the speaker in the corner. 'Not to worry you or anything, but I just put twenty credits on you taking out the drell. You better not let me down.'

'_What_?' Thane and Shepard spoke simultaneously.

'Let's just say the combat arena is all set up and ready to go, complete with a betting shop. Also I think Sgt Gardner's opened some sort of hot-dog stand. You better get down there ma'am.'


	15. Balance

_ … With blade and gun in tow._  
_(Audra Mae, "Bandida")_

* * *

The discovery of the melee cupboard had started a thousand and one conversations about combat amongst the crew, and down in the hangar some more theoretical discussions were becoming deadly serious. The intra-species ones were particularly interesting: it turned out the quarians had a similar style of blade to the drell, though the technique was entirely different. Tali had declined to join in the sparring, wary of damage to her suit, but had adopted a human sabre to practise with by herself. Quarian sword arts had almost died out with the formation of the Flotilla, for obvious reasons, but those interested could still learn the basics in strictly controlled conditions.

The turians, on the other hand, had apparently totally lost their pre-eezo combat arts, apart from hand-to-hand sparring. Garrus was curious about the weapons in a patient, faintly condescending way. He was openly amused by the knuckledusters, and made a derisive comment about "squishy" human physiology. This sparked a tongue-in-cheek conversation about the downsides of human evolution between him and Tali, thereby wounding the collective pride of all other crew present.

The result of this was that Shepard arrived in the hangar some time later and was greeted by the knowledge that Crewman Johansen, in charge of the betting, had been inundated by pro-human wagers.

'If this was an Alliance vessel you'd all be tossed in the brig,' she warned, taking the sting out of the truth by smiling uncontrollably.

'One of the perks of working for Cerberus, I guess,' replied Donnelly lightly.

'Commander, you do know Jack will be furious when she realises she missed this,' said Jacob, between stretches.

'We'll just have to run another round when we get her back.' Shepard was flicking her sai in and out, offensive and defensive, accustoming herself to the weight and balance of the blades. 'Who else is involved, anyway?'

'The assassin, you, me... Garrus thinks he's above these primitive toys. Typical turian. I think some of the other humans are itching to try, but they're a little intimidated. No one particularly wants to be added to The List.'

'The... list?' repeated Shepard, unsure if she had heard the capital letters correctly.

Jacob grinned around his short-sword. 'That's Garrus' invention. The LOPYKOTA. The List Of People You've Knocked On Their Asses.'

Shepard hoped fervently that the rest of that conversation hadn't also made it round the crew. She changed subject. 'What's going on over there? Why's everyone crowding around?'

Blades flush with her forearms, she headed over. Crewmen stepped back to let her in. The unmistakable gasping sound of steel slicing through the air emerged from the centre.

Thane was revising. The one-handed dark sword, with its ridiculous muzzle pommel, whirled and spun around his head and torso. He wore his vest but his customary pants were cut short and his feet were bare. Shepard wondered how many superimposed memories were playing out behind his glazed eyes. The style was certainly different; there was something characteristic about the footwork that she couldn't quite place. It was flat and deliberate, and the stances shifted levels frequently and didn't seem confined to the usual eight angles of attack. Less shifting of the feet and more thoughtful placement.

He came to rest in a mid-level stance, breathed deeply for a moment, then stood up and brought the blade up vertically, clasping his off-hand to the grip. Shepard made a conscious effort to retain that image, the tall drell glowing with exertion and the graceful curve of the sword shattering the light around him. The watching humans breathed again.

'Beautiful... and impressive.' Shepard had meant to say only "impressive", but the first word had leapt out of her mouth before she could stop it.

'Thank you. Some adjustment to the technique is required for this terrain...'

The reason for the odd movements suddenly became obvious. 'Because that footwork is designed for manoeuvring in sand, right?'

'… Yes.' He lowered the sword. The watchers were drifting away, creating the illusion of privacy. 'Very perceptive.'

'Like I said, my N7 training was thorough. I passed one of my RT combat situations in sand dunes and I found myself adopting that sort of movement in order to remain upright. I'm curious as to how this is going to play out. It's difficult enough attempting to fight melee with different human weapons, let alone with blades and styles from different species.'

'Perhaps you and Jacob should spar first. I will face the winner.'

Shepard felt her pride prickle. 'Why?' she asked, challenging him with her gaze. 'Do you need some more time to practise?'

'On the contrary,' he replied smoothly, 'I thought perhaps you would appreciate the time to familiarise yourself with your weapons. Your memories might be a little hazy.'

'Krios, I believe that is your pride talking.'

'Again, perceptive.'

Her heartbeat had kicked up a gear. She rolled her shoulders and turned on her heel. 'Right, let's get this show started. Thane has just challenged me to spar first. Can I get an impartial referee?

A distinctive flanging voice came out of the babble of human chatter. 'Present.'

'Garrus, thank you. What do you think, best of three?'

'Make it five,' purred the turian, blue eyes alight with mischief. 'I'll call a point when either I judge a fatal blow has been scored, or one of the opponents signals submission. Combatants will be penalised for bloodshed, leaving the arena, using biotics, and general sloppiness.'

'Nice...'

'Hey, I have to make this fun for myself somehow. Positions, please!'

Shepard marched into the square that had been taped onto the floor of the hangar. Her battle haze was descending, and she was only dimly aware of the noise from the onlookers. Opposite her stood the drell, still and stoic as always, though his features were arranged in an expression that she hadn't really seen before. It might have been amusement. The corners of his sensitive mouth were twitching.

She flipped her sai out into the attacking position and reflexively spun the blades once, making the steel shimmer. She settled into a short stance and thought quickly while Garrus made a great show of counting down.

'Five..!'

The whirling technique would make it hard to judge where he was aiming, but a blade was a blade, and the principle would be the same. Look for tension.

'Four...!'

He'd probably go for cuts rather than thrusts. Less opportunity to catch the blade, unless he went for her head.

'Three...!'

Out-manoeuvring would be the key to winning this. His feet would be slow, caught in invisible sand. She could whip around faster. Beware the curves.

'Two...!'

She brought the blades up to cross over her head. Weight on the back foot. Light on the feet. Focus. Breathe.

'One...!'

Oh god he _was_ smiling.

'Fight!'

Shepard changed her mind at the last moment and flipped her sai to defence; her judgement was rewarded when this gave her ample time to knock Thane's probing point out of line. The metals met with a dull clink. Genuine blades never sounded as exciting as they did in the vids...

The dark sword came back, low into her thigh area, and she batted it aside again and followed through with a blunt strike at his arm. He used the momentum from her block and brought his sword arm right around, coming in from on high. Shepard turned and caught his blade with her left sai, let it slide down harmlessly, and stepped in to strike at his stomach. He wheeled and stepped out of the way, always curving the sword around him like a forcefield. Her blade glanced off with a delightful _shhhhhing!_ sound.

The dance continued for some minutes, punctuated by the thud of feet on the floor, the clanking of steel on steel, and encouraging sounds from the audience. To Shepard's irritation it was Thane who scored the first point of the bout, introducing his free hand into the combat and knocking her attack wide, batting her other blade out of the way with his, stepping in close and fetching up with the tip of his sword against her throat. The steel was cool, and she could hear the edge crackle as it tickled her skin. Despite the fact that she had her left hand held high above his head, point down, Garrus awarded the point to him. She growled and wiped off her hands on her jumpsuit before she reset.

He got another point off her - a stupid one, taking advantage of her displeasure by goading her in too close again and finishing up this time on one knee with his blade prepared to disembowel her – before she began a comeback. Her first one was, though she hated to admit it, largely down to luck. He misjudged the speed at which his sword would slide off her defensive blade and she'd been able to whip around deep in his space and prepare a stomach strike with both blades.

The second point was glorious. The fourth bout lasted a good five minutes, both of them now thoroughly warmed up and beginning to tune into the other's technique. The tension mounted. Johansen altered his odds. Shepard teased her opponent by flipping her blades in and out, always moving, seeking to control the fight by catching him as he moved. The idea had been in her head since she had watched him practise: the big leg movements were strong and solid, but at the peak of the motion there was a crucial moment where he was vulnerable.

She worked her way out of the corner where he had been attempting to pin her (sneaky!) in a flurry of parries and punches, functioning on instinct and training, and moved further back in the centre of the arena. He would have to move out to get to her now. She went into cat stance and circled her arms, centring herself and bringing her focus to bear, her right foot resting lightly on the toes. She could see the fine scales shift and ripple as he came forwards.

She chose her moment well. As his foot came up to alter his position, she was travelling forwards, carried by a one-footed spring that didn't feature in any of the kata. She collided with him with her blades flat and harmless against her forearms at the moment when his balance was at its weakest, and to her delight he went tumbling down with a grunt. Straddling his chest with one knee high and the other on the ground, she pinned his sword arm with one blade and brought the other up to his neck.

The cheers of the crowd barely registered in her conscience as Garrus called the point hers and declared this next bout would be the decider. She was absorbed by the black eyes that stared deep into her own, by the heaving throat beneath her blade, by the push of his chest against her thigh, by the scaled hand that had come up reflexively and now gripped her sword arm with the strength of a python. His mouth twitched again, but the emotion was less easy to identify.

She came back to herself after their referee sarcastically stated that he didn't mean to intrude but that he was wondering if they were ready to continue.

'Two points to the human, two points to the drell,' boomed the turian, the two tones of his voice separating more obviously with the volume. 'This next one is the decider! If you haven't placed a wager on this battle this is your chance! Human or drell? Spectre or assassin?'

'What I wouldn't give to have Nassana Dantius watch this,' commented Shepard, rolling the tension out of her neck.

'Ready... Fight!'

In and out, round, up and down... The world closed down and became nothing but the dance of flickering steel, the panting of her breath, thoughtless recognition and reaction. She tried to catch him off balance again to find he'd tempted her into it, and saved herself only by a graceless duck and roll. The blade went humming above her head with enough force to make her realise he'd expected her to outwit him. How far was he able to see ahead? How many steps would she have to see in advance before she could surprise him?

Far too many, she realised, after a few aborted attempts to out-think the assassin. He was totally tuned into her movements and ignored all her feinting, already blocking her when she moved to strike, already compensating when she parried his cuts. Twice he could have opened her up and gone for the point, but he was hesitating, drawing out the bout. Focus. She couldn't get him if she remained formal. She needed to put pressure on him. Take his balance again.

He launched an offensive before she had chance to think, but her subconscious filled in the gaps. Block, block, dodge, block, wheel, block, _ha_! As his sword came down she flipped her left sai around and snagged his blade between the main prong and one short one. A little pressure, and he realised he was trapped; he twisted back, but released the sword entirely once he felt the tension in the grip, and the beautiful weapon went clattering to the deck. Shepard's adrenaline burst like a bubble in her chest, and with the human crew going wild, she brought her right sai around, arm extended, to bring the point to bear on the drell.

Thane knelt, the point now on a level with the five-sided shape on his forehead, and very gently lowered his head, so the tip of her blade just touched the thick black scales. His eyes closed and he murmured something.

Shepard lowered her blades and bowed quickly, then placed the weapons on the floor and offered him a hand. He took it and stood. His grip felt weirdly dry in her own sweaty palms.

'If that had been a straight fight, you'd have beaten me easily,' she reminded him. 'It was cruel of me to use the sentimentality of your weapon against you.'

'I learned a valuable lesson from the experience. The cold and unfeeling place we recognise within ourselves may have a purpose after all.'

'There was no way I could outplay you, none at all. I had to go outside the box.'

He crouched and took up her sai, and handed them reverently back to her with a breathy noise of amusement. 'Hhhn. Siha, please stop apologising for winning. You will need these. Mr Taylor is no longer looking quite so enthusiastic but I think he will not refuse a direct challenge.'

* * *

**AN**:_ Headcanon: drell sword and techniques are based on the Indian-subcontinent's _tulwar_ sword, made of something like the awesome and mysterious Damascus steel. Quarian swords would resemble the Circassian _shashka_, but a previous incarnation, more utilitarian knife than sword. Both are curving blades developed from long knives. Quarian sword technique is a soft martial art, similar to human Chinese _Wudang_ arts (e.g. _t'ai chi ch'uan_) in that it was developed to teach control and for health and philosophical benefits, but sword duals were not unknown on the Homeworld. It's thoroughly illegal on the Fleet due to the safety concerns._


	16. Fears

In hindsight, sparring before sleep had been a very bad move. It was true that some of the stress had worked itself out in the flashing blades and pounding feet and lecturing Jacob on the mentality of good swordsmanship, but Shepard was rediscovering that being physically exhausted made it a lot harder to stay in control.

She managed to slip away between matches and head discreetly up to the loft. Jacob had reluctantly added his name to the "LOPYKOTA", after she took him out four points to one. He was focused on speed and strength, and she'd easily been able to out-manoeuvre him. He'd admitted afterwards he'd picked up most of his skills from vids, having failed ICT training at N2. No one else from the crew had challenged her, so she'd sat out and ate a hot dog while the rest of them got stuck in. Crewman Sekasi from Engineering turned out to be a fencer, but her swordsmanship suffered in a round arena, and against Crewman Innes armed with a machete. People seemed to be enjoying themselves, relishing the chance to revive old skills and settle old rivalries. Shepard even put ten credits on Patel, and won twenty-five back. She wondered why she hadn't thought of this earlier.

Thane had also disappeared at some point, presumably to take care of his sword and to begin mental preparations for the coming mission. She shouldn't disturb him.

Locked in the loft again, she stretched off. Her neck wasn't doing so badly, but her shoulders and back were still twinging sharply. She swallowed two more painkillers and flopped down on the bed. Perhaps the pain lingered because of the weight of the memories she was carrying around with her?

The ice she'd mentally wrapped over her troubles was melting, and grasping ghostly hands were breaking through. Shepard found herself wondering how much more she could withstand. Big heavy words rolled around in her mind, love, grief, betrayal, guilt, fear, anger... If she picked them apart they fell open into spiny tangles of emotion: that unanswered message she'd received after Horizon; three cold caskets in the silent hangar; Liara's apparent stab in the back, and creeping ulterior motives from Cerberus; body parts scattered in the Akuze starlight and missiles screaming from the pirated YMIR mech; the handprint on her mirror; Jack's defiant eyes in the visor before the smoke rushed in... And sunsets and dust, and black steel, and his predilection for breathing nothing but her scent...

How many bodies had blown into pieces on Korlus? Why had the thresher maws not snapped her in half like a toothpick? How could Liara have done this? Who wanted to kill her lover and why? Would they be smart enough to not only outwit the queen, but also checkmate the king? When she'd had to change her breathing filter down on Rakhana, was that what it felt like for him all the time? If she'd been faster heading through the Omega 4 relay would more of her crew have survived? If she'd been faster when the Collectors attacked the first Normandy, would more people have survived? Would she? How had she got them back? In all this blood and anguish how had she gained love and respect? How much bittersweet sand was left to run through her glove before this long day would end?

Here, locked in the safety of her den, was the time to release the pressure a little. Shepard hauled herself up and dug out her punching bag and wrist wraps.

* * *

She reawakened to herself some time later, shining with sweat, her eyes stinging, and felt a lot better: emptier, calmer, purged. The tangle was still there in her mind, but it had been savagely trimmed and beaten back down into the ground. Her wrists ached happily as she unwound the supports and unhooked the sandbag from the ceiling.

In the bathroom she ducked her head under the sink and gulped water from the tap, then let her head come beneath the jet and splash over her. She scrubbed her hair until it stood up, and with a pair of barely-used scissors, trimmed it roughly. Little flecks of black hair fell like ashes where she had been standing. She used toilet paper to gather them all up and flushed it away. She cut her nails while she was at it.

She was stretching off again after this latest bout of exertion when he came to her. He didn't say anything. Just entered the room, made sure to lock the door against all but their prints, and stood before the fish tank, hands clasped in front but restless.

'How're you doing?' she asked, shaking off her hands.

He almost stepped forward but stopped himself.

Shepard raised a brow. _That bad, huh?_ The assassin's control was far superior to her own, so when his began to crack, she was certain something huge was weighing on him.

The bottom dropped out of her stomach when he called her by her first name. They both stepped forwards and collided in the middle of the room. Shepard took his hands in hers. 'That sword brought a lot of things back, didn't it?' she murmured.

'I had not drawn the blade in many years. I carried it with me because... its weight was a comfort. I could look at the scabbard and recall happiness with my wife, with my son. I looked forward to death, imagined meeting her again with joy. Now... I'm... conflicted.' He pulled out of her hands and paced. 'When I die, when I see her again, I'm not sure how I will be able to talk to her about... this. About you.'

Shepard left him for a moment, skirted her half-hearted collection of model ships, and picked up the holo frame from her desk. It hadn't stirred from when she'd slapped it down in confusion after that first time they'd touched hands. 'Thane, I _have_ died. I was dead for two years. Before that, during our hunt for Saren I became... involved... with my lieutenant. Kaidan.' She came back down and showed him the image. He took the frame in his hands.

'I met him again on Horizon and... it wasn't easy. He was angry. Upset. I went to the planet prepared for battle but I wasn't prepared for seeing him again. It was horrible. We both... said things. Then a little while afterwards I got a mail from him. He told me he'd been seeing someone else during the last year.'

The drell drew in a sharp breath. She continued blankly, sensing the defensive distance between herself and the explanation.

'I was... hurt, at first. Then I realised he deserves another chance. I was dead. I didn't expect him to mourn for the rest of his life. I'd have been a bit disappointed if he had. I wanted him to keep living. I don't really know what we had before. I never thought about it. It wasn't anywhere near as committed as marriage and kids. I've no idea what might happen if I ever see him again. But... the point is this: you still have Kolyat. Irikah loved you. That will not change, so long as you stay yourself. And from what you've told me it sounds like you're more like your old self now than you were before you met me.'

She took the frame from him and tossed it onto the bed, self-conscious having spoken so roughly of things so tender. 'Anyway I'm sure we can sort this out when I die.'

'Your thoughts on this are very different to my own,' he commented quietly. 'But when it comes to death you have the benefit of experience. As ridiculous as that sounds. Did you reply?'

'What?'

'To the lieutenant's message.'

'Oh. No, I didn't.'

'… I see.' He moved his head in, asking permission, and kissed her darkly. Their hands wriggled and twisted and twined together. She was still damp with sweat while he was cool and dry. 'And you?' he said eventually, thirst quenched. 'How are you feeling?'

'Currently, not much. Actually I'd just finished beating up my punch bag when you came in.'

'You're not used to talking either, are you,' he observed, a note of wry humour in the rumble of his voice. 'Not about yourself anyway.'

'You heard me just now. Anything that's... important... I turn it into a report and recite it like it happened to someone else. That distance is what stopped me going insane.'

'Hmn. Well. If you ever feel the need to talk, I will be here for you.'

She took his face in her hands, marvelling again at the velvet-like frills. 'Thank you. That means a lot. I hope you find some peace soon with your thoughts. I didn't scratch the sword did I?' she added.

'A little.'

'Oh god Thane I'm sorry.'

'No, siha. The lesson you taught me was valuable enough that I do not begrudge the scar. Sentimentality shall not stop me from doing what needs to be done, in order to neutralise Natai.'

She examined him, incredulous, unable to comprehend how it was she held him in her hands right now, all this loving kindness and infinite comprehension. 'You are just... How are you not angry with me?'

His sudden smile brought another huffing sound of amusement, and he placed his hands over hers. 'Hehh. My time is too short to spend in anger, my siha. With a little reflection and prayer, I understood and overcame.'

'Can I ask you something? I think it might trigger a memory.'

'Of course.'

'What happened when you met Nerar Natai for the first time?'

His hands clenched over hers and his pupils dilated. '_View through the ventilation grill chills my gut: fast bubbling and muffled screams as she holds the drell's head down in the bucket of water. The assassin brings the captive up and shakes him; blood and water stream down his chest. He babbles something wretchedly into her ear. Rage rewrites my plans with a firm hand. Arashu steps into me as I kick out the grill and drop down into the room._'

He awoke breathing heavily, dropping his head in the intensity of the remembered emotion. He steadied himself on her shoulders and rested his forehead to hers. 'Hey, it's okay...' Shepard found herself saying uselessly. 'It's okay.'

'To torture a drell with water is... beyond brutal... I should have killed her then...'

'Thane, it's okay, we'll get her this time, I promise. You saved the hostage right? That's why you had to let her get away?'

'No.'

'No? Why? What happened?'

Before she realised the stupidity of the direct question he was back in the memory. '_Recognise the other drell as I draw my gun on the assassin. The target. I turn. He turns; I see the pleading in his green eyes. She realises what has happened. Protect him from more pain. Kalahira guide you down into the waters and pull you gently from this shore... Shot to the temple as she plants a short blade in his chest. It's over. Blood everywhere, walls and floor, flowing down to wider rivers. Businesslike she dashes the bucket of water over the mess. "Cleanly resolved. But if you were here to kill him _before_ he talked you're too late," she states. Pulls out the knife with a sucking sound and cleans it off. "Farewell, sere Krios." Let her leave. Prepare the corpse. The water drains away..._'

He sank down under the strain; Shepard grabbed his arms and lowered them both to the floor. 'Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you go back there.'

'Siha..?' He sounded dazed.

He'd woken her up from her nightmare with her rank; she had no idea what to call him to have the same effect. 'I'm here. It's me.' He was still crunched over, one knee raised. She sought his lips and kissed him gently, and he drew another sharp breath in through his nose. One hand went out and gripped hold of the bedframe next to them, the fingers of the other were pressed against the floor.

Finally he surfaced. 'I... apologise... I have been avoiding that particular memory for a long time.'

'So you'd been hired to kill the target before he talked?'

'No. I had simply been hired to kill him by the other faction. I had no idea he would be hunted by another. He was a slaver, not a pleasant individual, but no drell in the universe deserves to undergo that kind of torture. Natai has no respect for her targets. No compassion. A perverse pride in her treatment of them. I... I fear her. I fear her for what I could become.'

Shepard drew him up into standing. The words came from somewhere beyond her and flowed smoothly.

'Do not be afraid. Your strength and your pride will keep you. Your gods walk with you. Natai walks alone. And we will come down on her together like the tide comes to the shore.'


	17. Hunt

Wet suit first. Then webbing. Omni-tool strap. Then one by one the pieces of armour.

_Commander, we're almost at Relic. You guys better suit up._

Socks. Boots. Tight strapping around the ankle and heel. Flex. Turn foot this way and that to check the give. Bend toes.

_You want results, fuck, you gotta go in all guns blazing_.

Shins. Knees. Thighs. Tingling as the electronics link with the webbing, with the undersuit, with her charged and shining black skin beneath it all.

_Here they come..._

Pelvis. Hips. Utility belt. Swivel to check flexibility. Connect links with leg pieces. Green lights across the board. Catch sight of reflection in the tank, half-prepared.

… _X-ray vision..._

Wrists. Lower arms. Elbows. Upper arms. Ammo pack. Connect up. Fizzling, itching sensation as the cybernetics link into the system. Swing arms from side to side to shake off the pins and needles.

_He is very lucky._

Gloves. Left. Pause to touch the worn gripping surface with one bare hand. How many weapons? How many edges? How many bodies? Right. Flex. Punch.

_Take care of yourself, Shepard_.

Shoulders. Roll up the neck collar. Flex. Pain lingering but adrenaline and drugs would cure it. Double check suit, comms, omni-tool, barrier, shields, medi-gel, life support. Roll shoulders. Matt black with the bold red stripe of her rank. Slight abrasions to the chest and arms. Aesthetic damage. Men with scars. Breathe as deeply as possible, expanding chest cavity, feeling the armour settle like second skin.

_Don't scare me like that again._

Weapons locker. Faithful Carnifax. Chaos-causing Tempest. Ammunition. Heat sinks. The adopted Collector particle beam for its versatility. And...

… _I can see your wings…_

Draw the sai and manipulate the steel, flick from defence to offence, adjust for gloves and new width of limbs. Blades clack against the surface of her armour. Sheathe both and spend a little time equipping them, checking all possible weapon changes to make sure the scabbards don't interfere with the firearms. Crossed at her lower back in place of the shotgun. Feel better.

_I fear her._

Roll shoulders again and shake hands. Kick legs. Inhale. Breathe awareness of each molecule of air. Exhale. Alive. Stay that way. The storm is coming. The storm is her. What do we fight for? What savagery will not go down from weapons alone? What would we die for?

Love and life. Black and steel. Blade and gun. Prepare. Protect. Destroy.

_But... why?_

Shepard picked up her helmet.

* * *

All her preparations almost evaporated in a fizzle of anti-climax. The station of Long Reach was aesthetically stunning: graceful curving passages led from the docking bay up a flight of steps and out into an open chamber where a bluish drell processed their landing. Tali craned her neck. 'Like the inside of a shell,' was her only comment.

Shepard's focus was down to a glinting razor edge, and she filed the view away as something to be enjoyed later. They were gestured respectfully through a decontamination chamber, and from there out onto a long open walkway, which overlooked a shimmering pool of silvery water. Hanar drifted sedately past, some accompanied by drell under the Compact. The ceiling was bulbous and domed, and translucent: the grubby green-grey sphere of First Land hung over the hall.

'Now what?' whispered Tali.

'We wait.' Shepard went to the railing and leaned her arms on the barrier. The sharp tang of nausea was curdling her stomach. Thane's plan for turning the tables on Natai meant, as far as possible, making it look like they were not associated. To this end he had gone on ahead in the shuttle to scout things out for himself. He would then ping her with details of his location once he had picked up the trail again. The rest of the Normandy was on shore leave, taking the opportunity to refuel and restock and, ironically, relax. Shepard had had to solemnly promise Joker that she would not blow the station up while they were still on it.

A coral-pink hanar drifted across to them, tentacles wafting gently. 'Greetings, spacers. This one wonders if it can be of any assistance?'

Shepard considered. 'What can you tell me about this station?'

'This is Long Reach, the largest refuelling station in orbit around First Land. More specifically, this is the top deck, colloquially referred to as the Reef. Lower decks include shipping, processing and refining.'

'So this is a working mining facility as well as a residential base?' asked Tali, a spark of the wide-eyed pilgrim in her voice.

'That is correct.' The hanar's bioluminescence fluttered and flashed. One tentacle lifted slightly and motioned to the lake. 'This one would direct your attention to the pool and sculptures that surround us, and the dome above. The hanar operate this station in return for a respectful cut from the proceeds made by selling the ores and metals found in the atmosphere of First Land, and a modest fee from those ships which, like your own, pass through for refuelling. The working day of a miner is particularly long and arduous, and the hanar found it beneficial to construct a place of peace. Output increased substantially once the workers had somewhere pleasant to relax.'

'Do you ever get trouble here?'

'Ah. This one assumes you are referring to dishonest practises.'

'I mean, from the miners. The ones I meet aren't necessarily the most trustworthy in the galaxy.'

The hanar paused before responding. 'The residential levels of the station have their own guard corps to moderate disputes, and the processing and administration levels are served by security mechs. The hanar promote a culture of peace and understanding. Why else does language exist? These security precautions are regrettable, but necessary. This one hastens to specify that trouble is rare here, and when unpleasantness does occur, the perpetrator is always an alien. But the Enkindlers preach trust and faith, so the station remains open.'

'There's no one you'd refuse entry?'

'Those with communicable diseases. Those with insufficient credits to pay the docking fee. Those featuring on the blacklist of the station.'

'I notice this doesn't include mercenaries,' put in Tali, gesturing over her shoulder with one hand. Shepard observed a bright blue and white uniform working a terminal further down the walkway.

'Trust is important here,' said the hanar, a note of condescension creeping into the simulated voice of her translation module.

'Who's in charge? Who makes the decisions around here?'

'All enquiries may be addressed to representatives on the administration level,' said the hanar smoothly. 'All major mining companies have offices below.'

Her heart leapt as something beeped quietly in her ear. The signal. 'I should go.'

'Fare well, spacers. Enjoy your stay.'

Shepard turned and headed off down the walkway at a jog, passing the Blue Suns mercenary. Tali followed in silence. The weight of purpose settled on her shoulders. They went down a flight of stairs on the right and came out beneath the walkway in some sort of maintenance corridor. A drell mechanic was welding something a little further down to their left in a harsh shower of sparks.

'Tali we need to find the ventilation shafts. I want to stay out of sight for as long as possible.'

The quarian glanced around, then motioned for Shepard to stay put. She went up and asked the drell mechanic. The drell flipped the visor up and revealed herself to have purplish frills on blue skin, and dark blue eyes. Presently Tali returned. 'I told her I was hired to improve the filtering system and needed access to the vents. The nearest entrance is back towards the entrance to this level, underneath where we entered.'

'Good work. Let's move.'

'Where is he?'

'The signal was from a tracking bug, but it's stationary. He must have tacked it on a wall.'

'This station was built with sea creatures in mind, Shepard. The vents may not make it easy to manoeuvre.'

'We'll manage. The drell have to get around somehow. Come on.'

She broke into a sprint as they neared the opposite end of the corridor, taking care even in her urgency to land her feet quietly, not to attract undue attention. She and Tali uncoupled the ventilation grill and slid into the duct. Tali paused to reattach the grill from the opposite side, then slipped down to join Shepard. 'Ugh. Smells like rotting seaweed,' she commented. 'Where to from here?'

'We need to get down to the lower levels.'

'Logically that would be around the stairwell area.'

'Let's go.'

The vents were utilitarian, but still rounded off and delicately patterned, an attention to detail which surprised Shepard. Mindful of the extra width to her body thanks to her sai, she kept to the centre, running her hands along the outside. In the stairwell the ducts also branched, leading up and down. They descended a short ladder, crawled through a narrow vent, and climbed down another, longer ladder. The lighting was poorer in this section. Shepard eased up to a grill in the ceiling and peered cautiously through. The duct was set below the level of the walkway of this section, and through the criss-cross of metal she could see the twitching tentacles of a hanar as it drifted along. It entered a room on the right. Presently another came out farther away down the corridor and also went into the same room. Thick cables ran the length of the walkway. With no bioluminescence to translate into breathy synthesised speech, the level was eerily quiet.

Shepard crouched down beneath the level of the grill, and brought up the scanner on her omni-tool for Tali's benefit. The flashing dot showed a point beneath their current data of the station's layout. The quarian turned the holo around, cross-referencing it with the parts of the station she knew of already, the hanar's information, and her own engineering expertise. 'Looks like another level down, which would probably be part of the industrial section.'

'This feels administrative. Too many hanar, not enough machines.'

'We should head down again, and towards the port side of the station.'

Shepard closed the map and led the way back to the ladder. The smell and heat hit them about halfway down: an acrid molten stink. Tali exclaimed aloud in disgust and paused on the rungs to fiddle with her suit's filters.

Shepard stepped down into the next duct and scuttled along to the grill. The air at the top of the walkway was full of steam, rolling gently along the pipes in the ceiling. Rhythmic clanging and thudding came through the metal walls. She checked their rough map again and zig-zagged her head to try and see more of the corridor. 'It's on here somewhere. Check this duct for a junction.'

Tali ran lightly on ahead, and beckoned. Shepard followed her down and to the left, running parallel to the walkway. Regular side branches led off to rungs set into the pipes. Moisture was beading on the sides of the duct. A sudden gush of yellowish steam into the vents forced them to halt until their vision cleared. Tali drew her pistol.

'Of all the levels she could have picked,' muttered Shepard, cursing the female assassin with all her soul. _Blood and bubbles... _'Shit. We gotta find him fast, Tali, this atmosphere is like poison.'

'Who'd have thought all this heavy work goes on beneath that paradise on top?'

The flashing dot was drawing nearer. They ran on, no longer caring about the noise of their feet. Shepard skidded at a junction and plunged down the left-hand fork for a few paces, then leapt up and punched out the grill in the ceiling. She hauled herself through the opening and launched forwards. The tracker was stuck to the ceiling just above a doorway, beyond which lay a dark stairwell, lit by reddish low-energy lighting. _Black or dark red?_

Shepard also armed herself, her pistol clicking into position. She pulled the tracker bug off the metal and deactivated it, stowing it in her belt. She edged to the doorway and peered round and down. The stairs descended, folding back on themselves, for a very long way. Thin tendrils of steam came up from vents set into the wall. They went cautiously down, all senses alert for ambush attack from hired guns. The smell intensified. _No respect for her targets. No compassion. Perverse pride_.

Another blip appeared on her sensors at the third landing. Shepard reckoned they were deep down in the mining and processing systems. Against all her instincts, she decided to get back into the ventilation shafts. Tali was able to locate the nearest access point with some guesswork based on the upper levels: here the pipes ran through the tops of the rooms and workshops, not the floors. They ducked into a tiny locker room, disentangled the grill in the ceiling, clambered up, and crouched once more in the acrid gloom of the ducts. This system was lined with a fine metallic dust, and breaths of revolting, damp air came passing through. God knew what they were processing here. The ores found in the atmosphere of the gas giant they were orbiting must be full of junk elements that needed to be burned off.

Shepard signalled to her squadmate, and both of them paused to disengage all comms and radio activity. She found herself hoping something _would _go wrong, so she would have an excuse to come blasting through the wall and kill Natai herself. Her molten rage at the assassin for leading a drell with Kepral's syndrome into such a steam-filled environment was making it hard to think straight.

A little square of pale, thatched light came through the pipe from a grill, further along, from a lighted room. They edged forwards slowly. The pipes branched, one leading over the top of the room. Shepard gestured for Tali to climb up and take position above. _Any gods listening up there, please, let it be only Natai who falls today..._

She eased up alongside the grill and, her heart thundering in her breast, angled her head to peer out.


	18. Pulse

_Hatt al-hudad, Al-maahn al-baiid  
Ay-yah idare, Adamm malum _

_(Through the tempest / be it deluge or sand  
A lone voice / cries through the torrent)_

_(Brian Tylor, "Inama Nushif")_

* * *

_Thudding and banging. Yellow, sulphurous steam roars out of a duct in the ceiling. My fear is making it hard to concentrate. My chest has not felt so tight in a very long time. I am angry at myself for overlooking this angle she might have played. Still, the plan is working so far. I have found her. Or rather, I have let myself be led to this gods-forsaken place. The Blue Sun mercenary at the Reef told me I was required down here. The other drell workers I passed in the corridor wore masks and heated tanks of dry air. I could have left. _

_She stands before me, barely altered from the last time: sandy, golden skin and pale fringes, acute mottled grey eyes, clad in long, loose dark garments favoured more by dancers than assassins. A straight longsword is attached to her back with ribbons. She thinks she has concealed a knife in her boot and a dart in her sleeve. She considers me with her arms folded over her flat chest, feet planted apart._

_'I was half-expecting you to keep running.'_

_Her voice carries the hiss of shifting sands. The modified sniper rifle will not collapse with my blade hidden inside it. I lean on it instead. She continues, inspecting her prize. My breath grates in my ears and rattles in my lungs. I have never attempted combat in this condition._

_'My original plan was to lead you all the way back to Kahje. The exodus of the drell all over again. Then you bit back with more acuity than I anticipated. Long Reach will do. It's nice and warm here, don't you think?'_

_I say nothing, not trusting my voice. She tilts her head quickly._

_'Dry throat?' The idiomatic expression is like a slap in the face. She narrows her eyes in amusement. 'Why _did_ you come, anyway? You look tired,' she observes. 'Propping yourself up with that battered old rifle. Last time you were much brighter, old man.'_

_'Do you always play with your food?' It feels and sounds like something has fallen out of my throat: my voice sounds strange and breathy._

_She laughs. 'Hah, no, not usually, but this one I want to savour. The biggest challenge of my career. Yet one of the easiest to hunt out. Why is this, I wonder?'_

_I cannot bear this. I drop my gaze and call out to Arashu. Never have I desired protection so much as in this moment. The longer she continues to force me to talk, the less chance I have of overcoming her. She knows this as well as I. But I will not be the first to strike._

_'Be sure of who is hunting who.'_

_'Oh please, you're not going to tell me you're the one who's hunted me down? The master assassin, the unstoppable. "One who splits the tide with blood", that's what my employer has decided your soul name is. Oh no Krios. I baited you and you fell for it. You must be counting on being able to beat me. What in all the worlds gave you that idea? I know you are more skilful than I. You were trained well, and have had more time to whet your talents. But you must have known I'd compensate. Handicap you. Blunt your edge. Make it a fair game.'_

_This drell is not Whole. Her spirit cowers somewhere at the back of her head while her body and instincts guide her through the universe. And her employer is a hanar. It's as I feared. This must be seen through to the end. 'Through prayer and meditation I decided it was the proper course of action.'_

_'Ahhh yes, heh. Cling to your lost gods, Krios. It's the only way you can live with yourself. '_

_'All souls can be saved.'_

_'Yeah, but who's going to save you from the ocean? You can feel it, can't you. The water is taking you from the inside out. But there is one way to avoid the suffering.'_

_'Enough.' I shift my grip on the rifle. She's right. It hurts to breathe. I hope to all the gods my siha found the trackers I planted. I have a horrible feeling I will need her before this encounter is over. There is no shame in being rescued._

_Nerar Natai blinks horizontally and another jet of steam blasts into the room. Fear grips cold claws into my gut. 'Let's get this over with. You want to fight while you still can, and I have other things to take care of after I've dealt with you. I've been looking forward to this, sere Krios.'_

_As she draws her sword I notice she has depressed a small device attached to her wrist, but nothing immediate seems to happen. I hear nothing. The sword remains a bright silver snake in her hand. 'Oh. Hand over the rifle. Your pride wouldn't let you bring a gun to a knife fight, would it?'_

_Slowly I present the butt of the gun to her. She takes hold of it with her free hand. I twitch the barrel of the gun where the blade is concealed, and just as we planned the rifle folds and collapses back. She traps her finger in the mechanism and stifles a yelp of surprise. I draw the glittering sword and sink into stance, noting the pale scar of my siha's weapon on the sheen of it. Courage lifts my head and tightens my grip._

_Hold fast and focus. Amonkira guide me; Arashu defend me._

_Natai has disentangled her fingers from the rifle and flung it down, and is lunging with all the hot force of her anger. I catch her blade easily on the flat of my own and turn her aside, striking into her shoulder. She ducks out of the way and hisses in aggression, her neck frill inflating to half capacity and amplifying the sound into a sharp pitch I've not heard in a long while: the sound of a genuinely furious drell is rare these days. Coldly pleased to have angered her: it will make her easier to deal with. And she appears to be operating under the assumption that I am alone._

_She is young and vibrant and versatile. She comes at me again very quickly, and I back off as I parry and dodge, defending while I analyse her technique. Her blade flickers. Seems to be a melange of styles. Some traditional drell _belyaasub_ circling as she wheels and catches my blade in an arc. Commando-like strikes that feel copied from biotic movements. And what I can only describe as a very krogan reliance on brute strength._

_Oh no no, Natai, blade combat has nothing to do with strength. Speed is for immature fighters. To deal damage with a sword you must outmanoeuvre your opponent; checkmate them; slow the fight down. Like this..._

_I catch her blade on the flat, let it slide past and step into her space, push to her shoulder. She staggers and I turn with her. I could have scored a hit there, drawn pinkish blood from her golden scales, but I desire her to know what she is doing wrong, where she could improve. Then she shoves back, spitting at me in her hatred, and I fall back. I wonder what I did to deserve her dislike. I wonder how much she is earning for this hit._

_We break apart and eye one another. I wipe the saliva from my cheek with my shoulder. In the moment of quiet I can hear the air scrape into my lungs and feel the tickle of a bubble in my chest. I can also hear something else, something tiny, something... dust-like, trickling._

_I must kill her._

_She's on me again. The swords clash in cries of steel._

* * *

Neither of the drell had even glanced up at the pipes since they'd been there watching, so by the time the fight really got started, Shepard was all but pressed up to the grill watching, pistol holstered. She was hoping Natai would look up and notice her so she would have no excuse to hide any longer. This would have been so much simpler and faster if they'd just gone as a team. Why had she listened to him and let him go off alone?

He was fighting well despite the atmosphere, calm and collected, easily dealing with the younger assassin's strength and speed. The yellow steam seemed to be coming from a different piping system. She wondered agitatedly how many systems vented into this room. It didn't look like it had been constructed for much else. Was there some moment Natai was waiting for when the pipes would all fill with waste products?

The longer she was forced to sit tight and watch, the more scenarios she found to agonise over. She turned and sank into a crouch by the grill, pressing her hand to the metal. Something crunched beneath her knee.

She looked down. Little ripples of sand were gathering around her leg where she was blocking the... flow?

Shepard blinked herself into focus and stared up the pipe. A stream of greyish sand was trickling downhill from somewhere beyond the room, further on than they had yet travelled. She crushed herself up to the observation grill again and strained to see into the corners. Between the duelling drell, in the left hand corner... Oh god. It _was_ venting into the room. A pile of sand was forming in the corner, steadily pouring down in a thin line from a funnel-like chute in the ceiling.

Something groaned in the depths of the machinery on this level, and there was a thud. A pause in the flow, the quiet accented by the clash of the blades. Then the grey sand burst out, gushing down into the room. That caught Thane's attention. He looked from the sand to Natai, then glanced up at the ceiling.

The pale assassin smirked, and came in swinging. Her razor-edged blade distorted the thick air into a _hhhwwwwoaa_ sound, and Thane dropped and rolled out of the way.

Shepard tore herself away from the grill, leaving a piece of herself behind in agony, and darted back along the pipe to find Tali. The quarian had also been watching through another viewing hole, and met her at the junction. 'She's filling the chamber Shepard, we have to shut it down!'

'Any idea where?'

'Further in. I picked up a tiny electrical pulse a little while ago. That must have been the signal. A remote trigger.'

'Track it down, Tali. Fast. We can follow the flow for now.'

The stark orange glow of Tali's omni-tool lit up the pipes. Shepard set off running, crouched awkwardly, scraping and scrunching uphill along the relentless sand. It gave off a faint metallic odour as they disturbed it. The pipes led them to the left, back across parallel to the room where the assassins clashed, and along the other side, then off into a sequence of bends.

'Got it.' Tali updated their map and sent it over. Shepard checked her scanners and exclaimed aloud.

'My god... Move move MOVE!'

The distance was obscene: just under a kilometre of piping lay between them and the rogue system. The muscles in their legs and the oxygen in their lungs would have to out-perform not only the pouring sand and the uphill inclination of the pipes, but also the muscles and lungs and intelligence of Nerar Natai, if they were to all come out of this alive.

_No_. This wasn't the way it would end. She would _not _lose anyone else. Ever again.

Especially not him.

Referring to the guiding blip of her radar at every turn, Shepard began the longest and most anguished run in recent memory. The lengths and heights of the pipes prevented her from ever breaking out into a full sprint, and as they began to make progress towards the valve the footing grew worse and worse as the volume of sand increased.

It was nightmarish. Everything in her, every cell, every hair, told her she needed to move faster, but physics were against her. Her foot slipped and she almost fell but for Tali's lightening-fast grab at her back.

She pushed and shoved her way though a short raised section that Tali had found was a short-cut and wriggled out down into a huge duct that seemed to be the main channel. The sand moved slower here, but powerfully, and roared away down a chute to their right. Tali slid out of the opening and landed feet first on the shifting surface, and almost fell. Shepard grabbed for her wrist and stabilised her. '_Keelah_, Shepard...! This is impossible!'

_Manoeuvring in sand..._

'Copy me.'

She lowered her centre of gravity, and moved forward purposefully: slower, more deliberate, large movements with her legs, but far greater stability. It felt so wrong to be moving so slowly, but she knew logically it was faster than simply flinging themselves against the current. Her heart pounded. They waded onwards until finally, her spirit leaping with relief, a short ladder presented itself and they hauled themselves up and broke into a full run, storming like thunder down to the bulky control panel for the venting system.

Only now did Shepard realise they were not alone in the tunnel. A suited figure was fiddling with the console. A figure in bright blue and white uniform.

Fury, contained by her fear, now overflowed inside her, filling her limbs with molten energy. Shepard clenched her fists and took two bounds forwards before throwing herself into a Charge. 'Haaaagh!'

Impossibly, the mercenary looked up and stretched out her hands and _caught_ Shepard by the shoulders, absorbing the energy and dissipating it through the most powerful Barrier she'd ever encountered. The impact knocked them both to the deck.

There was only one biotic in the galaxy who could pull that off.

'Jack?!'

* * *

_Step, step, parry, parry, swing, cut, parry, feint, parry, retreat..._

_I am exhausted. The sand continues to pour into the chamber. I am barely thinking consciously any more, and fending off her attacks requires more and more effort on my part. She is coming up on adrenaline and savage joy at having out-smarted me. I attempt to draw a deep breath to centre myself but this too requires effort, and she takes advantage of my confusion and lunges in. I parry, barely, and spin and shove her away with my free hand. She does not anticipate off-hand strikes as well as she reads my sword-arm; this one is no exception and she stumbles in the loose footing._

_'Agh! Curse you for the pride you breathe, Krios, why do you fight back so hard? You can't possibly win! Everything is against you! What is it? You don't even have a peaceful old age to enjoy! You are going to die in agony either way! Just let me take you down!'_

_To her obvious fury, her comments make me smile. How little she knows... Her ignorance is like a breath of air to the flame within me. Our next encounter leaves her with a bloodied arm after her parry was less adept than usual and I twisted my blade into her flesh. In the pause while she screams, I permit myself to cough once. The inside of my mouth tastes of metal._

_Hurry, siha. The sand is approaching our knees._

* * *

The mercenary turned her visor transparent, and a pair of glaring brown eyes met Shepard's. 'Uuugh... If that's your idea of a handshake, commander, I sure as hell don't ever want you to punch me. Fuck!'

Shepard climbed off her and offered her a hand, and to her relief the biotic accepted it, hauling herself up and rolling her shoulders. 'Explain later,' she said quickly, forestalling the inevitable. 'Right now we need to shut this thing down.'

'Whatsherface the other drell assassin, she got me to direct Thane down here. Then she got me to come down here myself and attach this little remote control thing onto the console – thought it was another tracker; I didn't know the crazy bitch was planning to vent all this shit into the room. I've been trying to get the fucker off ever since she opened the second valve.'

'Move,' ordered Tali, and the humans stepped out. The quarian crouched and began yanking out handfuls of wires from the underside of the console. The sand roared.

'How many valves are there?'

'Three.' Jack's hands were shaking. 'Two down. Next one's the floodgate. Jesus. I'm sorry. Thought I was so clever getting myself adopted by the bug-eyed bitch. Kinda slipped my mind she'd be trying to kill him. Figured you'd want me to leave her alive until you got here, thought it would be fun to play along. I'd just decided to do that when she comes right up to me and tells me there's creds in it for me if I do two little tiny tasks for her. Bitch didn't mention there'd be fucking tunnels and shit. I don't wanna die down here commander.'

'Hey, hey hey. Get a grip, Jack. No one's gonna die except Natai. Stay close to me.' Jack swallowed hard enough to be heard over the comms, and paced up and down. 'Tali, status.'

'It's a good job, Shepard,' said the quarian tightly. 'Rigged to overload if it's tampered with. I need more time.'

'We don't _have_ time, Tali. Shut that thing down now!'

'I'm trying!'

A stream of curses came over the comms as Tali pushed herself right into the crawlspace. Something sparked. Lights flashed on the console; a few turned red.

_Hold on, Thane..._

There was a shuddering grinding crunch from somewhere along the passage, deeper in the machinery.

'Oh fuck...'

'What?'

'That's the sound it made when the other valve–'

They lost footing as the entire conduit heaved. The sand surged, hissing and thundering as it roared onwards with twice the velocity. Even Jack fell speechless before the fury. At this rate the room would be full faster than they could get back down there. Nothing could survive that. What good were weapons and armour now?

Shepard made a snap, and outlandish, decision. 'Tali, stay here and shut this thing off. Then get back to the room fast. Jack? Put that Barrier back up.' Jack did so, shaking her head slowly in disbelief. Bluish energy shimmered over the pair of them as Shepard activated her own biotics. Then she gripped Jack by the arm and ran for the side of the walkway, and jumped.

The sand sucked them into the current and swept them along. Protected from the worst of the biting grains by their kinetic barriers, the two humans could only fight to remain in control of their movements as they were jumbled and bumped along, clanging off the walls of the pipes. Shepard fought to remain on her back, just able to see glimpses of the turns to come, and fending off the sides with her hands and feet. If the situation were not so deadly urgent, it might have been good fun. Jack, much more content to take her fun where she could find it, whooped aloud with adrenaline.

This plan had a lot of drawbacks, realised Shepard, as the pipes swooped onward. For one, the room would still be filling with sand until Tali shut down the system. Secondly Natai probably had an escape route planned. Thirdly, which should have been first, she had to get Thane out of here fast. Stroke of luck having rediscovered Jack. If it hadn't been her it would have been some other mercenary not so sympathetic to their cause.

Riding the sand at this speed brought them back to the room in minutes. Shepard began to recognise the pipes they had run through earlier. 'Jack! Can you take out the funnel from here?'

'Easy! Get out of the way!'

'No no, I want to be in it.'

'What?!'

'Do it!'

A purple-blue flash and a cry of exertion, and Shepard lost all sense of direction as she was blasted through the sand on a Shockwave. The bottom dropped out of her stomach as the pipe took a sudden vertical. Then there was a clanging, a huge thundering of pressure, and then she was out and flailing, scudding down the pile of sand on her back and rolling. The pieces of funnel came sliding down after her. Her barrier was gone, and grey sand insinuated itself between the pieces of her armour.

She fought to get upright, sand now pouring freely and horribly quickly out of the conduit. Jack dropped down with more grace but still fell over and down the pile, swearing.

'Siha.'

Warmth and life blasted her limbs with energy at the sound of his voice, accented by a sharp edge of fear. She'd never heard his voice sound so breathy before, so transparent. He was immobilised by the gushing sand which glittered around his chest, but alive, his blade held vertically in front of his face. His eyes were closed. Blood had run down his cheek from a cut on his head.

'Jack! Get over here! Thane are you all right?'

'Surface wounds only. Welcome back, Jack.'

'We gotta get you out of here.' Shepard medi-gelled him quickly, for all the good it would do. He lowered the sword as the pain subsided and opened his eyes.

'Not before I have killed Natai.'

'Where did she go?'

'When she finally realised she could not win, she increased the flow of sand again and escaped through the sealed door at the back. I tried to follow but could not.'

She sensed he was reining himself in, making an effort to remain focused even through he must be furious, to have a target escape and be unable to follow, to be forced to wait for rescue, to have his lungs betray him, to be dug out of the metallic sand by the hands and feet of two humans. Finally they had loosened the sand enough that leaning back in her arms he could kick his way out. He had another cut on his torso which was encrusted with the stuff. He scrabbled out and on top and rolled over onto his hands and knees and coughed thickly in short bursts.

Dark nausea poured through Shepard's body. She pulled off her helmet and disentangled the life support pack from her back. The ever-decreasing space of breathable air was thick and humid and vile. The metallic elements in the sand fractured the yellowish lighting over the walls in little shards of light. 'I never was going to let you try this alone.'

He forced himself to stop coughing, and looked from her eyes to the helmet and back again. 'If I were truly alone, I would not have tried it.'

It was impossible to stay completely on top of the shifting sands: all three were crouching down now on all fours, trying to spread surface area and constantly working to avoid sinking. Then suddenly, like the answer to a prayer, the gushing sand from the broken vent halted. A thin thread of grey trickled down, then even that stopped completely. In the silence an agitated voice came over the comm.

'Tell me I was in time, Shepard, please..!'

'Thanks Tali, good job.' The quarian whooped, drawing a tired smile from Thane. Shepard handed him her helmet, and he, swallowing his pride, took it. 'Tali, get back here and get Thane to Chakwas. Tell Joker I'm sorry. Jack, with me.'

'Joker?'

'Siha, I...'

'Did you wound her?' demanded Shepard, ignoring Tali's confusion.

'A little.'

She was stripping off her firearms, all except the pistol, and laying them down on the settling sand. 'Good. Jack, when I say go, fire a shockwave at the door and run your ass off to catch up with me on the other side.'

'Shepard..!'

Feeling oddly light without her heavier weapons, Shepard scrambled over the sand and positioned herself in front of the outline of the door. The room was about two-thirds full, preventing her from standing. She cricked her neck. Rolled her shoulders. Re-established her Barrier and tried to find some stable footing. Flexed her fingers and formed fists. No idea what was beyond the door. Prepare for anything. Prepare for pain. Prepare for battle. 'Ready?'

'Siha, wait, listen to me. Her style is erratic and powerful. She carries a dart and a knife concealed. They are probably poisoned.'

Scorpions die when their heads are crushed, but their sting and claws remain potent. She looked back over her shoulder, and out of her own helmet, two large black eyes shone in prayer even as his chest jerked with the effort of controlling the urge to cough.

The door. Focus. Three, two, one...

'Go!'


	19. Antidote

_Why do you weep? What are these tears upon your face?  
Soon you will see all of our fears will pass away.  
Annie Lennox, "Into The West"_

* * *

At the first blast of the Shockwave behind her she was tensed, tight with anticipation and glowing with energy.

_I can see your wings..._

When the second blast hit her, she was already in the air, kicking off the sand into a Charge that she'd known would be under-powered without the solid surface to launch her. The third, fourth and fifth blasts of Jack's wave were a blur as she rode them down, punching clean through the door, the secondary force of the biotic wave ripping the entire mechanism from its frame. The sand roared out through the opening, and she soared out with it, pipes and ducts bending under the pressure wave and blown out of shape and position by the shockwave that followed her.

She was leaving a trail of alarms and sirens as the machinery complained at the damage. More vile steam blasted out behind her. Clanging and banging came from ahead. Another door. Shepard braced herself, concentrating the energy of her Barrier on her unprotected head.

The impact she was expecting never came, or rather when it did it was far softer. Incredibly, Natai had opened the door at the other end to see what all the sirens were about, and Shepard cannoned right into her.

She hadn't been expecting the female drell to be so well-built, bigger than Thane's sinewy strength. They fell down together, Natai coming off the worse for being unprepared. Shepard rolled off her quickly and got to her feet, drawing her sai. Her head and neck and hands were pounding with hot pain.

Natai groaned, but picked herself up as well. The collision had opened up a gash on her left shoulder, and her right thigh had also suffered the bite of the dark-edged drell sword. The would-be assassin's eyes were an astonishing colour, a glittering silver-grey like sunlight on water. 'I have no quarrel with you, human,' she said, her voice deep but with the hiss of the desert behind the tone. Her left hand went up to the hilt of her sword strapped to her back. 'Or rather, I _had _no quarrel with you.'

Shepard assumed a defensive stance, too angry to speak. The sand clinging to her webbing meant that each movement scrunched. She forced herself not to think about the damage that might do. The new room was larger and sliced through with huge pipes, presumably carrying different mining products to various places and machinery.

Nerar Natai faced her, smile cracking her lips. 'You're going to fight me with those little mammal claws?'

_When their heads are crushed..._

Shepard changed her mind, flipped to offensive, and sprang forwards. Natai parried her easily, and laid into her with a brutally fast sequence of cuts, high, low, mid... The white blade glanced off her leg plate and snicked the webbing, and Shepard sensed the suit's shielding go down in one leg. She backed off and banged into a pipe.

Black and white, they circled. Natai's pale neck frills inflated slightly. Shepard knew how this would end. It was time to stop drawing it out so needlessly.

She threw her right sai. The blade whirled through the thick air and went wide, as she'd assumed it would. With her now-free hand she reached across to her pistol. Natai's free hand went into her sleeve. Shepard threw her other sai, missing again but distracting the drell. The first sai clanged off a pipe. By now her gun was in her hand and fully-formed. Natai's free hand came shooting out, releasing the dart, and the spine hit Shepard in the leg as she pulled the trigger.

Natai crumpled, a bullet through her already torn shoulder. Shepard staggered. Alarms were ringing louder in the corridor. There was a retching metallic yawning sound from deeper within the room as something malfunctioned. The second sai pinged off something and clattered to the floor. She levelled her gun and advanced on the pale drell, whose neck frills were puffed up and moving in time with her heavy breathing.

'Who hired you?'

Nerar Natai smiled horribly through her pain. 'That's c... confidential...'

Without blinking, Shepard shot her again, in the leg. Natai screamed, the sound making Shepard's head tingle for a reason she couldn't explain.

'It ends here. You chose this when your mercenaries attacked us on Rakhana. There is no way you will come out of this alive.' She bent down and brought her face close. 'So you can either make this really easy, or utterly agonis— woah!'

Something feral flickered in the silvery shards of the drell's eyes, and Shepard barely backed away in time. The knife blade split the air in front of her face and the tip of it scored a line across her nose, right where she'd once born a scar from a fall onto a railing, from her gang days back on Earth. Natai was incoherent with rage and fear, crawling forwards grotesquely in her pain. Shepard limped backwards away from the wild swinging blade, shivering as the skin opened up and the hot air touched her flesh, and the blood began to run out over her face. Her leg was beginning to go numb. Her back touched another pipe; she stepped sideways into another. Cornered. She raised her gun and fought the twitching in her muscles to aim and...

And suddenly Natai was gone.

Shepard blinked, panting and sweating in her pain, and eventually relocated the pale drell pinned high up on a huge duct by the bluish light of biotics. Thrown. Heavily. Both fighters were having to really work to remain conscious. Shepard's other leg was tingling and she sank to her knees. Shields wouldn't protect her now.

She watched mutely as Thane, still wearing her helmet, walked up to Natai, slid her down the wall with a gesture, put swift pressure on the artery in her throat that rendered her instantly unconscious, and respectfully slit her throat with his sword as she fell. The blood ran out and down and pooled on the floor in a weird reddish puddle that glimmered like oil under the light.

The queen thus taken, Shepard stopped fighting the protests of her body, and someone caught her as she pitched forwards into darkness.

* * *

Falling, but slowly. Sometimes laid out on her stomach, sometimes standing still.

Warm wind on her face as she looked down over the railing to the sound of Kio's jeering laughter. Fifteen storey drop to the tagged and rotting street below. A prize in the room beneath.

She'd tried to catch him. Hadn't meant to shove him so hard. Fell over the railing herself trying to save him but twisted her lithe body and found a handhold, taking out another broken pole with her face on the way. He was not so fast. Screamed all the way down and crunched when he hit the bottom. Through the blood she watched him twitch as he died. Pulled herself back up and made the gash on her face burn like fire as her tears ran into the flesh. Fifteen years old. Strong. Clever. Survivor. Cerberus had removed the physical evidence, but not the scar itself.

A momentary, confused impression of bright white lights and steady, rapid beeping, then back down into the dark.

The empty Gunnery Chief's terminal on the lower deck. The empty place in the mess. Pacing alone in her cabin and rehearsing over and over what she would tell her sister, and never being satisfied. Knowing the real reason behind the choice she had made and counting herself weak for it. Vowing never to chose love over logic ever again.

Dimmer lights, and slower beeping. Aching neck. Feeling the blood force its way past a tight bandage around her thigh and another itchy one around her face. She tried to turn her face but the pain flared across her nose, and she lolled her head back into the depression in the pillow with a hiss of pain. Soon enough the darkness returned.

She missed the simple brutality of him. The thick krogan solidness. His eventual acceptance of what he was, what he was to become. She never had tracked down which of Clan Urdnot had put in a request to breed with her after she and Thane had helped him kill the maw.

She missed the speed of him. The warm-blooded hyper-active thoughts that went straight through his mouth regardless of validity or content. That paradoxical blend of patient compassion and calculating ruthlessness. He'd once reorganised the entire library by system of origin.

She missed the mystery of them. Many souls in one body. She'd barely even scratched the surface before sending them into the pipes to hack the door on that god-forsaken Collector base. Maybe there was hope for them after all. Maybe.

_You're not used to talking either, are you._

She woke herself up awkwardly, only really realising that she was crying when the breath she drew through her mouth came shuddering, and the tears shivered down her temples. With a deep, oddly calm feeling of release, she let herself go on. The knotted and tangled mess of pain and fear and guilt finally uncoiled and passed smoothly through her chest, up her throat and out of her eyes and nose. All her mistakes rose up out of the dark and dusted themselves off and presented themselves, saline, for inspection: she acknowledged each one and dismissed it to the ocean of her memories. They would rise again. But not now.

Other things began to surface in her mind as she worked through the grief. The touch of his smooth hands. The shape of his chest between her thighs. The tickling velvet of his neck frills. Making him shudder. His lean fingers, pushing and working. The hot strength of his tongue. Riding the waves.

She'd hesitated to call it love, partly for fear of ever making another mistake like Vermire. She knew only that at first she had sought him out in curiosity and in pity. Recognition of evanescence is bittersweet. Compassion had moved her to help him make use of the time he had left. Two years ago, as the oxygen had hissed out of her back and the pressure had gripped her limbs and the blood had begun to burst from her eyes, floating horribly serene in the wreckage of her ship, Shepard had seen her universe and found she was not content. If she could help him avoid that gaping despair, she would do everything in her power. Partly because it was a feeling she would not wish on anyone. Partly...

Partly because, for reasons that existed but that escaped her grasping hands like little silver fish, she _did _love him.

But if it ever came to choosing between him and the galaxy, she would choose the galaxy. The wretched and perversely comforting thought was that it was unlikely he would live long enough for her to ever be forced to make that choice.

Shepard sat up cautiously in the dark, realising that she'd apparently been drip-fed painkillers and antidote in between her fitful waking. The medical bay of her ship was familiar, but not from this angle. She felt no pain, as such, but there was a strange fuzzy feeling in her neck and leg, and in a stripe across her face. She found some tissue and cleaned herself up with care; her nose in particular was tender, and had bled a little when she cried.

Squinting, she made out that Chakwas had fallen asleep on her arms over on the other side of the bay. The other bed was empty. She probed her cheek and discovered the knife wound had closed up. She scrabbled at the back of her head for the ends of the bandage and began to unwind it.

The door hissed gently and opened; a thin shard of yellowish light fell to the floor and widened, revealing a lean shadow. Her heart leapt out of her chest and landed running. He registered no surprise in seeing her sitting, and, hands wrapped around a steaming cup, came over to her. Shepard coiled the pale bandage around her fingers and peeled off the antiseptic padding. Why, in this day and age, was human medical equipment still tailored to white people? Did manufacturers not realise a good 3/5 of the species would prefer darker shades of bandages and plasters? Assholes.

Thane handed her the cup, though she suspected he'd expected to find her still asleep and had brought it for himself. She shifted and sat cross-legged in the sheet, noticing as she did so that she had been put into a lightweight, short-sleeved jumpsuit for her treatment. The smell of black coffee brought her stomach growling into wakefulness, and she wondered how long it had been since she'd last eaten. The needle in her arm protested as she bent her elbows.

The door closed automatically, shutting out the light from the mess hall, and in the gloom of the regulation minimal lighting all was quiet except for the sound of Shepard blowing over the top of the coffee. She felt caged by the bed. Right now, she wanted to be skin to skin with him, tongue to tongue, breathing the desert from his scales and working the grief from his heart.

'How're you feeling?' she asked, ritually.

'I spent the last twelve hours lying on my back in Life Support, breathing from a tank,' he said wryly, the return of weight to his voice a comfort. 'Currently my condition has stabilised again. The exposure to such an atmosphere has had an effect but... it could have been worse. Your helmet helped.'

'I didn't get chance to thank you for helping end it quickly.'

'Before you passed out, you mean?'

'Did I...? I must have. I'm a little ashamed. You warned me about both extra blades and I still got caught by both of them.'

'Hhm. That was somewhat careless of you.'

She reached out and touched his head, encountering the ridge where his head wound was healing. 'She got you too though.'

'Only twice. And shallowly. ...I am glad I could take her life with relative ease for her.'

'Yeah. You were right. Whatever it was that burned out all her compassion I hope it's taking care of her now. The expression on her face at the end was...' It flashed into her head, crystallising as another haunting memory: the savageness, the feral refusal to consider the possibility of her own death. The snarl and the blood and the singing knife.

Thane stepped even closer and reached up, and took the tear she didn't realise she'd shed onto his thumb. Soundlessly he took the cup from her and let her lean on his arms as she lowered herself down from the bed. The IV tube stretched to its maximum length, and she drew out the needle. A little bead of blood welled up from her elbow but she ignored it. He clamped her to him and inhaled deeply, drawing her scent into his ravaged lungs. The breath came out in a dark sigh. Shepard found the tears were still forming, though she was not crying.

'If I could breathe nothing but you till I breathe no more, I might die happy...'

The shifting of a chair broke the moment: Dr Chakwas had stirred in her sleep. Shepard bit down an immature giggle, her sudden smile dislodging two more tears that went tickling down her cheeks. Thane blinked at her in confusion. She motioned him to silence, wiped her face, and led him by the hand from the med bay.


	20. Alive

_Manni: 'Lola?'  
Lola: 'Hmh?'  
Manni: 'If I was dying right now, what would you do?'  
Lola: 'I wouldn't let you die.'  
(Run Lola Run)_

* * *

Hot, dry air blasted from the vents in the ceiling of the loft. The sheet and blanket were already wound up and tangled on the floor. Human and drell were thoroughly tangled in one another. Alive alive alive; bruised and scabbed and battered, but breathing, pulsing, beating.

Taking him inside her was painful in an exquisite way: little spines jabbed into her, stinging but so gloriously good, every cell responding to every atom-breadth of movement. The heat consumed her, rolling up, sweat shining on her dark skin. His rhythm was slower than hers, and the anticipation was agonising. Sitting on top of him, his long legs hooked around her back and her thighs melting into the sides of his torso, she pushed up as far as the spines would allow and took him back in slowly, arching herself into his hips.

Neither of them were particularly vocal in their intensity. He used the anchor of her back to pull himself up into sitting, and her dark legs curled around his spine, clenching and quivering. His hands travelled rapidly up and over her chest, smoothing the swells of her breasts, the nape of her neck, and ghosting over her shoulderblades. The drell disentangled his legs and tenderly lifted her up and laid her down on her back, punching in again when her skin met the sheet and darting his head in to kiss her. The human writhed, shivering, no conscious thought in her mind. With Kaidan they had conversed as it happened. Here, they touched something far deeper, more primal, and it drove her spirit beyond herself.

She tasted the bitter sting of coffee on his tongue besides the musty scent particular to him. Urgency pounded in her chest; she clamped him to her with her legs and twitched her pelvis rapidly, drawing stabs of mingled pain and pleasure into them both. He tensed all over, densely muscled and glimmering in the dark, and in silence pulled and tugged at her mouth.

Like a wave he drew a breath and paused, and plunged into her again. This time the force of the oncoming tide drew a deep, slow sound from her throat; she nipped at his tongue and arced up to meet him halfway, accepting and renewing and sending it all back. She pulled at his shoulders and rolled herself sideways, reversing their positions again. Nothing could shatter this connection. Nothing could break this line.

All the excited energy of her mammalian physiology was becoming harder and harder to control. She pulled him up into sitting again with her hands, and pushed incoherently at him with her hips. He sensed it and, lowering himself down over her, altered his pace, agonisingly slowly at first, deeply, torturing her, then increasing in speed, skin to skin and beyond, she propped up and thrusting back, intent on nothing but each other and the rising wave of ecstasy, building, building, building, roaring, foaming, drop, drop, drop, till finally it crested and came crashing down around them in spasms and jerks and a long trail of froth as the energy faded and splashed and lapped on the shores of their bodies, bringing sticky heat and peace in the thunder of their hearts and the storm of their breath...

* * *

'Siha?'

'Hhm?'

'The second-to-last time we met here, you went very quiet and stared at your hands, and you said "We grasp with more than just our hands".'

'I did?'

'Yes. What did you mean by that?'

'Thane my love... I was hallucinating. I don't remember what I was thinking.'

'... hm...'


	21. Debts

Later, after she'd eaten three helpings of breakfast, Shepard went to apologise to Chakwas for running away. She submitted to another medical examination (which revealed the antidote had only just been administered in time, and that the stripe across her face would probably fade thanks to Cerberus' intervention in her immune system). She almost asked about Thane again, but decided not to. It had felt dishonest going behind his back last time.

Down in engineering, Tali embraced her. Donnelly and Daniels drifted tactfully away to the core.

'Tali, I never got chance to thank you for your help on the station. We'd have died horribly in there if you hadn't stopped the sand.'

'Just as I would have died on Haestrom, Shepard. And probably on the Citadel. And probably on Horizon. And probably on the Collector Base. Not to mention my position in the Migrant Fleet. And my father... We are still a long way from being even. I owe you much more than I can ever repay.'

'You have no debt to me, Tali'Zorah. Still. Thank you. I trust you managed to get off the station all right?'

'The entire industrial level was on the point of catastrophic system failure, but Thane and I managed to trigger the fail-safe, and the entire thing shut down before it went critical. Jack grabbed you and went blasting off back to the ship. I tried to make Thane come back too, but he insisted on remaining a while to explain to the hanar what had happened and to arrange the removal of the body and a transfer of credits towards repairing the station. I think he was anxious to make things right with them. They were actually really good about it – hanar are always so hard to read, but it was obvious they highly respect him. It was they who forced him to leave in light of his injuries, and they gave him a dry pack... that's what the drell workers wear in the sub levels to avoid the steam,' she clarified, seeing Shepard's eyes narrow in confusion. 'It's treated air that stays warm and dry. But... did he not tell you of this?'

'No. I just woke up last night from the anti-venom meds. We actually haven't spoken much since.' Which was true enough, assuming she meant verbal communication. 'Are you okay? I hope the sand didn't cause you any problems.'

'I'm fine. I was worried, but my seals held. But Shepard... what happens now? I didn't catch all of it, he was exhausted, but Thane said something about "checkmate" when I got him back to the ship. This assassin must have accepted a contract from someone. Are we going after the client?'

'I assume you pulled Natai's omni-tool before you left?'

'Of course. EDI's running it now. Shepard, what happened in there? When I arrived back in the chamber the side had been torn off and the sirens were going crazy, and I ran down as fast as I could but the assassin was already dead in a pool of blood and Thane was medi-gelling you while Jack held you. You were twitching and blood was coming out of your mouth...'

'Tali, it's okay. I'm fine.' Shepard put her arms on the young quarian's shoulders, seeking her bright eyes through the purplish visor. 'I was... careless. Nerar Natai managed to cut me with a poisoned blade. I don't remember much of what happened afterwards but I survived. I need to see about giving Dr Chakwas a raise. Or at least tracking down some more ice brandy.'

Tali touched the back of a long finger to the tip of the wound on Shepard's face, then twitched away, overcome with embarrassment, and turned. 'Well I'm glad you're okay. I have um, some things that need um... calibrating here. Um. I'll talk to you later commander.'

Shepard blinked, not expecting that excuse from the quarian, then smiled suddenly.

* * *

'So, you decided to jump on the scars bandwagon at last.'

Garrus was lounging on the barrier of the main battery. Shepard leaned on the doorframe. 'No such luck – apparently my immune system has been upgraded. Dr Chakwas thinks it won't last. Anyway I had scars before you.'

'True. But I'm an irresistible trendsetter.'

'How was shore leave?'

'Fine, apart from, you know, it being cut off as usual by alarms and explosions.'

'Hey, I didn't blow anything up this time.'

'I suppose not. No matter. I'll carry it over for next time. Remember, that's now two explosions you owe me.'

* * *

'I was wondering, commander. Is it dogs that have been known to turn up at their old home after they've been abandoned and left to die? Or cats?'

'Miranda, stop that right now. I owe Jack my life.'

* * *

'You know Shepard, I was thinking of asking you for a rematch when we next set up the duelling ring. I've been thinking a lot about what you said.'

'Sure.'

'Are you okay? You seem kind of distracted.'

'I'm fine, Jacob. I just...'

'We should just drop him off somewhere, Shepard. Jack I can handle, but that assassin just attracts trouble. We don't need his sort on board.'

'Mr Taylor. Kindly remember to whom you are speaking.'

'… Yes ma'am. Sorry ma'am.'

'It's thanks to him that you discovered that cache of melee weaponry. Remember that next time you challenge me.'

* * *

'Shepard, I... … … oh fuck.'

'Hey, it's okay. I figure we're about even now. I'm glad you survived.'

'… you are?'

'I swear it.'

* * *

Alone at her desk, Shepard laced her hands behind her head and slouched in her chair, staring at the wall. She had just finished reading the relevant files EDI had distilled from Natai's omni-tool, and the report of the comm traffic contained on it. The problem was not that her next course of action wasn't clear. It was that she wasn't sure if she wanted to take it.

The last part of the trail led to the planet Kahje. To the transport hub of one of the dome cities. To the terminal of a hanar.

A hanar had ordered another drell to assassinate Thane Krios. It had come closer to succeeding than Shepard was prepared to admit.

Something was very, very wrong here.

Also unresolved was the question of Liara T'Soni's involvement. It was unthinkable that she hadn't realised she was sending a team of mercs hired by an assassin after them. It was also unthinkable that she should betray them so easily. Yet, the mercs had come. And there had been zero contact from the asari. 'What the hell are you doing...?' whispered Shepard, scraping her hands over her hair and pressing them over her eyes. She winced as the stripe protested.

Well. There were two courses of action she might take at this point. Kahje, or Illium. Even as she formed the thought she knew already which one she would choose. Having eliminated all the pieces was not enough. Now they needed the king.

'Joker? Prepare for departure. We've got a job to finish.'

* * *

Once more, her team assembled in the briefing room. Once more Shepard laid her helmet on the table and looked at each of them in turn. Garrus on her right, her second in command by tacit and unanimous consent. Tali next to him. Jacob next to her. On her left, Thane. Jack next to him, her leg trembling. Miranda alone near the back, observing. The division between them was getting worse. She'd have to address that soon. Shepard had the uneasy feeling that something was coming to a head, and that afterwards things would change irrevocably for the worse.

'EDI tracked the transmissions down to the terminal. The client is a hanar merchant.'

'A _hanar_?!'

Tali, Jacob and Jack had spoken at the same time. Garrus had made a grunting noise in confusion. Miranda unfolded her arms. Thane lowered his head. Belatedly, Shepard wondered if she might have done better to talk to him privately first.

'I know it's hard to believe. So we're going down to Kahje to check it out.'

'Are you gonna kill it?'

'I don't know,' answered Shepard, in the silence that had fallen after Jack's question. 'I guess I'm more interested in _why_.'

'If you don't take it out, it will strike again,' put in Miranda. 'They're tenacious.'

'That's what worries me,' conceded Shepard. 'But at the same time I'm wary. We've never had trouble with the hanar in the past and I liked it that way. I'm a soldier, I can't just drop into a planet unarmed. But I do not like to use weapons unless absolutely necessary, and here, it's not.

'So here's what we'll do. Myself, Garrus and Thane will go down to the planet in the shuttle. I don't want to make more of a splash than necessary, so the Normandy will remain nearby. Meanwhile, I need the rest of you at your stations and ready to alert me of anything out of the ordinary. I have a bad feeling about all this.'

'Shepard... did you tell them?'

Shepard paused. That was tactless of Jack, but it was probably better to get it out into the open. Maybe. It would have to come out now anyway. The biotic was probably just trying to help.

'I was just about to,' she lied. 'There's something you need to know. When we went onto the MS Ifrit, when we found the files... There was a signature. The mercenaries had received our location from... an asari broker on Illium.'

Garrus' quick mind got there first. '… Eheh. You're kidding, right?'

'It was from Liara.'

'No!'

'I'm sorry, Tali, it was. But I trust her.'

'What?' protested Jacob. 'Shepard, if she sold your location to the mercenaries, then she stabbed you in the back.'

'She wouldn't do this unless she had good reason,' countered Shepard.

'The commander is right,' added Garrus. 'Liara was part of the team. She wouldn't betray us.'

'I just hope it's a good enough reason,' muttered Jacob.

'Yeah. Me too,' said Shepard tightly.


End file.
